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LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

University  of  California. 

RECEIVED    BY    EXCHANGE 


Class 


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Inauguration  of 
President  Adams 


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With  the  Compliments  of 


President  Adams. 


THE  UNIVERSITY  AND  THE  STATE 


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£4LIF0 


!.N, 


THE    ADDRESSES 


AT  THE  INAUGURATION  OF 


CHARLES  KENDALL  ADAMS,  LLD. 


TO    THE    PRESIDENCY   OF   THE 


UNIVERSITY    OF   WISCONSIN 


JANUARY  17,   1893 


UNIVEFtsrrr. 


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MADISON 

PUBLISHED     BY     THE     UNIVERSITY 

1893 


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PRINTED   BY 

Ei)t  OnibtrBits  ISrtes  of  Chirago 


CONTENTS. 


Invocation  by  the  Right  Reverend  Bishop  Fallows,  of  the 
Class  of  1862,  -,  -  -  -  -  -  .7 

Introductory  Address  by  the  Honorable  W.  P.  Bartlett, 

President  of  the  Board  of  Trustees,      -     -     9 

Address  on  Behalf  of  the  Faculty,  by  Professor  John  C. 

Freeman,  LL.D.,     -     -     -     -     -     -  11 

Address  on   Behalf  of  the   Students,  by  H.  H.    Jacobs,  of 

the  Class  of  1893,  -----  19 

Address  on  Behalf  of  the  Alumni,  by  James  L.  High,  LL.D., 

of  the  Class  of   1864,  -  -  -  -  -     23 

Address  on  Behalf  of  the  State,  by  His  Excellency, 
Governor  George  W.  Peck,        -  -  -  -  31 

Address  on  Behalf  of  the  Sister  Universities,  by  Presi- 
dent James  B.  Angell,  LL.D.,  of  the  University  of 
Michigan,  -  -  -  -  -  -  -     37 

Address  on  Behalf  of  the  Regents  of  the  University,  by 
the  Honorable  John  Johnston,  -  -  -  41 

Inaugural  Address  by  President  Adams,  -  -  -     45 


189817 


PREFATORY   NOTE. 


The  Inauguration  of  President  Adams  took  place  in  Library 
Hall,  at  2. JO  o'clock  on  the  after nooji  of  January  ly,  i8gj.  The 
audience,  which  filled  the  room  to  its  utmost  limits,  was  made  up  of 
Members  of  the  Legislature,  Alum?tt,  Invited  Guests,  Citizens,  and 
Students.  On  the  Rostrum  were  His  Excellency  Governor  Peck, 
the  Chief  Justice  a?id  three  of  the  Associate  Justices  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  several  of  the  State  Officers,  the  Board  of  Regents,  the 
Officers  of  Instruction  of  the  University,  and  Distingtdshed  Guests. 
Music  for  the  occasion  was  firnished  by  the  University  Glee  Club 
and  Lender  s  Orchestra.  hi  the  evening  a  brilliant  receptioji  was 
given  to  Preside7it  and  Mrs.  Adams  by  the  Alumni  of  the  University. 


INVOCATION 


BY  THE  RIGHT  REVEREND  BISHOP  FALLOWS,  OF  THE 
CLASS  OF  1859. 


ALMIGHTY  GOD,  our  Heavenly  Father,  the  giver  of 
every  good  and  perfect  gift,  we  pray  for  thy  blessing 
upon  us  on  this  important  occasion.  We  thank  thee  that 
thou  wast  with  this  university  in  the  days  of  its  early  strug- 
gles, enabling  it  to  surmount  all  the  difificulties  it  encountered 
and  to  gather  renewed  strength  from  all  the  adversities  with 
which  it  was  buffeted.  We  thank  thee  for  the  unbroken 
succession  to  this  present  hour  of  its  instructors  who,  con- 
secrated to  their  noble  work,  have  put  the  impress  of  their 
earnestness  and  culture  upon  the  minds  of  thousands  of  our 
youth.  We  also  give  thee  hearty  thanks  for  the  good 
examples  of  all  those  thy  servants,  among  their  number  who, 
having  finished  their  course  in  faith,  do  now  rest  from  their 
labors.  We  bless  thee  for  the  tender  and  inspiring  memories 
so  many  of  us  cherish  of  their  faithfulness,  their  sympathy 
and  their  helpfulness  in  the  formative  period  of  our  lives. 
We  thank  thee  for  the  response  made  by  the  University  to  the 
call  of  our  common  country  in  the  supreme  hour  of  its  peril, 
by  the  gladly  surrendered  services  and  lives  of  its  patriotic 
soldier  students.  We  give  thanks  for  this  bright  day  in  the 
history  of  this  beloved  institution ;  for  all  the  prosperity 
which  now  crowns  it,  and  for  the  increasing  opportunities  of 
usefulness  opening  before  it.  May  thy  benediction  especially 
rest  upon  him  who  has  been  called  in  thy  good  Providence 
to  the  arduous  and  responsible  duty  of  presiding  over  its 
interests.  Endow  him,  we  pray  thee,  with  every  executive 
gift,  and  enrich  him  with  every  needed  grace.  May  the 
faculty  associated  with  him  be  loyal  and  harmonious.  May 
the  Board  of  Regents   be  filled  with   the  spirit  of  wisdom  to 

7 


8  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

counsel  and  direct,  and  ever  be  saved  from  misapprehension, 
prejudice,  and  error.  May  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the 
people  thronging  here  for  instruction  make  his  administration 
one  of  abundant  joy  and  success  by  their  prompt  obedience 
to  law  and  their  passionate  devotion  to  study.  May  the 
alumni  ever  manifest  a  just  and  an  affectionate  regard  for  the 
welfare  of  their  university,  and,  as  her  living  epistles,  constantly 
add  to  her  renown.  May  private  benefactions  be  multiplied 
to  meet  her  urgent  and  unfolding  needs,  and  the  state  whose 
name  she  so  worthily  bears  be  unceasing  in  its  unstinted 
liberality  towards  her.  And  we  pray  that  she  may  thus  be 
fully  prepared  to  fill  the  conspicuous  place  to  which  she  has 
been  exalted,  and  like  a  city  set  on  a  hill,  whose  light  cannot 
be  hid,  stream  out  for  generations  to  come  the  glories  of  con- 
servative learning  and  the  splendors  of  progressive  science. 
Bless  abundantly  our  common  schools,  with  which,  wisely  con- 
ducted, we  have  nothing  to  fear,  and  without  which  we  have 
nothing  to  hope,  for  the  future  of  our  American  institutions. 
Bless  richly  our  normal  schools,  our  private  and  parochial 
schools  and  all  our  seminaries,  colleges,  and  universities. 
Bless  thy  servant,  the  president  of  the  United  States,  the 
chief  magistrate  of  this  great  commonwealth,  its  legislature 
and  all  in  authority.  And  now,  O  Lord,  we  pray  thee,  direct 
us  in  all  our  doings  with  thy  most  gracious  favor,  and  further 
us  with  thy  continual  help,  that  in  all  our  works,  begun, 
continued  and  ended  in  thee,  we  may  glorify  thy  holy  name, 
and  finally  by  thy  mercy  obtain  everlasting  life;  through 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.     Amen. 


INTRODUCTORY   ADDRESS. 


BY    THE    HONORABLE    WILLIAM    PITT    BARTLETT, 
President  of  the  Board  of  Regents. 


LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN  :  A  little  less  than  half  a 
'  century  ago,  the  foundation  was  laid  and  the  organiza- 
tion was  perfected  for  an  institution  of  learning  to  be  known 
as  the  University  of  Wisconsin. 

Our  state  then  contained  a  population  very  little  in 
excess  of  the  population  of  its  principal  city  at  the  present 
time.  Steady  and  rapid  has  been  the  growth  of  the  com- 
monwealth in  wealth  and  population.  The  interest  in  educa- 
tion has  not  abated  but  ever  kept  pace  with  the  growth 
of  the  state.  Then  unknown  beyond  the  borders  of  the  state, 
to-day  Wisconsin  University  is  known  and  respected  as  a 
university,  in  all  that  the  name  implies,  in  every  part  of  the 
globe  where  the  English  language  is  known  and  spoken. 

Six  gentlemen,  known  as  scholars  and  educators,  have 
been  honored  with  and  have  honored  the  position  of  president 
of  the  university.  To-day,  we  meet  to  confer  that  honor 
upon  the  seventh,  and  in  commemoration  of  the  event,  and 
as  an  introduction  to  the  ceremonies  thereof,  I  have  the 
honor  and  pleasure  of  introducing  one  well  known  to  you, 
one  who  is  held  in  high  esteem  as  an  eloquent  speaker,  a 
terse  writer,  and  a  successful  educator.  Professor  John  C. 
Freeman,  who  will  address  you  on  behalf  of  the  Faculty  of 
the  University. 


ADDRESS  ON  BEHALF  OF  THE  FACULTY. 


BY   PROFESSOR  JOHN  C.  FREEMAN,  LL.D. 


THE  FACULTY  have  done  me  the  honor  to  choose  me 
to  express  to  you  our  welcome  to  the  first  place  in  our 
body,  and  to  promise  you  our  hearty  co-operation  in  your 
efforts  to  make  this  institution  of  the  best  and  widest  usefulness. 

We  are  the  more  ready  to  pledge  you  our  co-operation, 
knowing,  as  we  do,  your  interest  in  the  form  of  education 
which  is  given  here.  In  the  promotion  of  education  by  the 
state  you  have  spent  your  best  efforts,  in  class  room  and 
lecture  hall,  with  voice  and  pen.  As  long  ago  as  1874  the 
president  of  an  Ohio  denominational  college,  with  a  pardon- 
able partiality  for  that  particular  form  of  education,  devoted 
his  inaugural  to  an  argument  against  higher  education  by  the 
state.  It  was  as  powerful  an  arraignment  of  state  universities 
as  I  have  ever  seen.  I  allude  to  the  inaugural  of  President 
Andrews,  then  of  a  denominational  college  in  Ohio,  but  now 
President  of  Brown  University.  I  notice  that  he  singled  you 
out  as  his  particular  opponent,  on  account  of  certain  articles 
of  yours  in  the  public  press.  He  recognized  that  you  stood 
for  the  idea  and  plan  which  he  thought  it  his  place  to  oppose. 
We  will  not  say  that  we  love  you  for  the  enemies  you  have 
made ;  but  we  have  confidence  in  you  for  the  combats  you 
have  waged,  for  the  able  opponents  you  have  met,  before 
whose  arguments  you  have  not  come  off  second. 

In  commending  your  vindication  of  education  by  the  state, 
we  do  not  understand  that  you  advocate  any  narrow  policy  in 
education.  We  understand  that  you  hold  as  we  do :  Let 
knowledge  be  disseminated,  at  public  expense,  at  private 
expense,  in  whatever  way,  by  whatever  means  !  Give  truth  a 
fair  field  and  let  her  grapple  with  error  and  we  will  abide  the 
outcome.     We  have  seconded  your  election  by  the  regents  also 

II 


12  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

because  wc  have  observed  your  appreciation  of  the  value  of  the 
various  methods  of  instruction  and  your  alertness  in  discern- 
ing what  was  the  next  step  necessarv  in  matters  of  education. 
We  recall  that  you  were  the  first  to  employ  in  this  country  the 
German  method  of  the  historical  seminary ;  that  you  were 
prominent  in  securing  the  adoption  of  that  democratic  system 
of  accredited  high  schools,  by  which  the  humblest  graduate  of 
the  village  high  school  is,  without  expense  to  him,  admitted  to 
the  privileges  of  the  university  as  readily  as  he  is  passed,  by  due 
promotion,  from  grade  to  grade  of  the  township  high  school. 
We  know  you  as  one  of  the  promoters  of  university  exten- 
sion, a  system  by  which  what  was  once  deemed  a  miracle  has 
become  a  fact  of  daily  experience.  In  this  state,  as  in  others, 
last  winter,  once  more  were  five  thousand  fed,  not  with  five 
barley  loaves  and  two  small  fishes,  but  with  what  was  cjuite  as 
delectable,  fruit  from  the  tree  of  knowledge  itself.  We  recall 
that  you  have  had  an  experience  of  thirty  years  in  public 
education,  and  that  you  have  stood  high  in  thecouncils  of  the 
two  foremost  state  universities  in  the  periods  of  their  greatest 
prosperity. 

The  condition  of  this  university  to -day  seems  quite  similar 
to  that  of  Cornell  University  when  you  assumed  its  j^residcncy 
seven  years  ago.  The  founding  and  organization  of  Cornell 
had  been  accomplished,  the  period  of  expansion  had  arrived. 
If  the  people  of  Wisconsin  shall  give  to  your  plans  the  cordial 
financial  support  which  you  received  in  New  York,  we  have 
reason  to  anticipate  that  a  similar  or  even  greater  success  will 
be  enjoyed  by  this  institution  in  the  coming  years. 

In  pledging  you  the  co-operation  of  this  facultN'  1  may  be 
permitted  to  say  that  our  body  has  been  noted  for  harmony. 
In  speaking  of  its  unity  of  feeling  I  do  not  refer  simply  to 
those  periods  in  the  history  of  the  college  when  its  faculty 
consisted  of  one  professor.  But  even  wIkii  there  have  been 
twenty  heads  of  departments  arid  thirty  assistants,  this  harmony 
of  action  has  been  almost  ecjually  manifest. 

The  chair  to  which  you  are  called   has  bicn  occupied   by 


IN  A  UGURA  TION  OF  PRESIDENT  ADAMS.  I  3 

distinguished  predecessors.  On  January  i6,  1850,  just  forty- 
three  years  ago  yesterday,  and  not  far  from  the  spot  where  we 
now  stand,  its  first  presiding  officer  was  inaugurated.  Chancel- 
lor John  H.  Lathrop,  whose  scholarship  and  facile  speech 
adorned  high  positions  in  various  states  of  the  union  and  who 
held  the  helm  of  the  university  with  a  skillful  hand  during  the 
first  decade  of  its  voyage. 

The  second  president  of  the  university  was  a  man  still 
more  distinguished,  the  Honorable  Henry  Barnard.  The 
variety  and  number  of  his  educational  collections,  and  that 
colossal  work  which  has  been  passing  through  the  press  for 
more  than  half  a  century,  the  youmal  of  Education,  have  given 
him  a  world-wide  fame.  It  will  ever  be  one  of  the  glories  of 
this  university  that  he  was  once  its  head. 

Time  does  not  permit  me  to  describe  the  services  of  the 
modest,  scholarly,  self-denying  Sterling,  the  eloquent  Twom- 
bly,  or  the  versatile  President  Chadbourne. 

In  recent  years  the  diffusion  of  the  educational  spirit, 
never,  in  the  history  of  the  country,  more  active  than  in  the 
last  five  years  ;  the  establishment  of  the  system  of  accredited 
schools,  which  we  borrowed  in  part  from  you ;  and  the  liber- 
ality of  the  people  through  their  representatives  in  the  legis- 
lature, have  greatly  widened  the  influence  of  the  institution. 
Many  of  us  here  present  know  something  of  the  late  success- 
ful administrations  of  that  distinguished  man  of  science.  Presi- 
dent Chamberlin,  and  of  his  predecessor.  President  Bascom,  an 
acute  thinker,  a  subtle  philosopher,  a  man  of  exalted  character, 
and  out  from  whose  instruction  no  student  ever  passed  without 
receiving  a  profound  impression. 

In  some  respects,  Mr.  Chairman,  this  is  an  extraordinary 
gathering.  We  have  here  to-day  three  members*  of  that  first 
class  of  twenty  that  were  gathered  in  February,  1849,  ^^  begin 
preparatory  study  under  Professor  John  W.  Sterling.  We 
have  here  the  first  graduate  of  the  university. f  We  have  here 
the  first  regent  of  the  university, ;|:  who  was  appointed  in  1848 

♦C.T.Wakely,  F.  A.Ogden,  J.  M.  Flower,   f  Justice  C.T.Wakely.   X  Hon.  Simeon  Mills. 


1 4  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

by  Governor  Dewey,  and  who  negotiated  the  purchase  of 
these  grounds  and  superintended  the  erection  of  the  first  build- 
ings. Here  sits  that  member*  of  the  first  senate  of  this  state, 
who  in  June,  1848,  drew  up  and  introduced  the  bill  which  was 
enacted  into  law  and  became  the  charter  of  the  university. 
There  have  come  up  to-day  to  witness  these  ceremonies  the 
two  first  white  inhabitants  of  what  is  now  the  city  of  Madi- 
son.f  As  on  the  lOth  day  of  June,  1837,  they  chose  each 
his  roof-tree,  they  stood  on  the  summit  of  yonder  hill  and 
looked  out  on  an  unbroken  wilderness.  They  have  seen  every 
house  built  in  the  city  of  Madison.  They  have  seen  this 
institution  pass  from  the  humblest  beginnings,  deepening  and 
broadening  its  work  from  year  to  year,  to  its  present  rank, 
when  its  beneficent  influence  is  scarcely  limited  by  the  bound- 
aries of  the  Union.  They  have  seen  the  forests  fall,  the  mines 
open,  the  fields  prove  their  fertility,  the  habitations  of  the  set- 
tlers dot  the  prairies,  the  cities  rise,  the  lines  of  transportation 
go  threading  the  valleys,  and  what  was  a  savage  wild  become 
a  Christian  state.  Where  once  in  his  lonely  cabin  the  settler 
listened  in  breathless  terror  to  the  midnight  yell  of  the  sav- 
age, now  is  heard  the  voice  of  mighty  congregations  giving 
praise  to  God. 

Fathers  and  brethren,  what  your  eyes  have  seen  is  not 
often  given  to  mortal  vision.  Yours  was  no  mere  Pisgah 
view.  You  have  entered  in  and  possessed  the  land.  You 
have  penetrated  even  to  Mount  Zion.  You  have  witnessed  the 
building  of  the  first  and  the  second  temple ;  and  have  taken 
up  the  abode  of  your  declining  years  within  the  shadow  of  the 
revered  structures  that  crown  these  twin  heights,  the  temples 
of  law  and  learning.  I  can  scarcely  refrain  from  addressing 
you  in  the  words  of  Webster  to  the  veterans  of  the  Revolution 
at  Bunker  Hill. 

"  Venerable  men :  You  have  come  down  to  us  from  a  former  Keneration. 
Heaven  has  bounteously  lengthened  out  your  lives  that  you  might  behold  this  day." 

You  are  now  where  you  stood  fifty-six  years  ago  choosing 
*  General  Mills.  "f  Darwin  Clark,  Simeon  Mills. 


IN  A  UG  URA  HON  OF  PRESIDENT  ADAMS.  I  5 

a  spot  for  a  home  and  purposing  in  these  forests  to  lay  the 
foundations  of  a  state.  Behold  how  altered !  The  same 
heavens  are  indeed  over  your  heads ;  the  same  lakes  are  shin- 
ing at  your  feet ;  the  same  swelling  hills  with  their  graceful 
proportions  are  diversifying  the  beauty  of  the  scene ;  but  all 
else  how  changed  !  No  longer  the  solitude,  the  privations, 
the  alarms  of  frontier  life.  No  more  the  weary  longing  for 
friends,  the  long  and  painful  journeys  to  the  seaboard.  The 
whole  world  has  brought  its  comforts,  its  inventions,  its  society 
to  your  doors.  Events  so  various  that  they  might  crowd  and 
distinguish  centuries  have  been  compressed  within  the  com- 
pass of  your  single  lives.  You  have  witnessed  the  erection  of 
seventeen  sovereign  states ;  the  rolling  of  the  vast  wave  of 
Christian  civilization  from  the  Alleghenies  through  this  Mis- 
sissippi valley  up  and  over  the  mountain  ridges  and  down  the 
Pacific  slope ;  the  expansion  of  the  newspaper  press,  the 
revolution  of  intercourse  between  men  by  the  applications  of 
steam  and  electricity.  These  events  you  saw,  and  part  of 
them  you  were.  But  no  more  is  there  the  hasty  summons 
of  the  minute-men  to  the  frontier,  or  the  departure  of 
volunteers  to  the  halls  of  the  Montezumas,  or  the  up- 
rising of  the  whole  state  for  the  restoration  of  the  Union. 
No  longer  the  rolling  drums  and  marching  squadrons  are  con- 
verting the  western  slope  of  this  hill,  and  indeed  this  whole 
city  into  one  vast  camp.  All  is  peace.  God  has  granted  you 
this  sight  of  your  country's  happiness.  He  has  allowed  you 
to  behold  and  to  partake  the  reward  of  your  patriotic  toils; 
and  He  has  allowed  us,  your  sons  and  daughters  and  country- 
men, to  meet  you  here,  and  in  the  name  of  the  present  gen- 
eration, in  the  name  of  the  commonwealth,  in  the  name  of 
civilization,  to  thank  you. 

It  is  remarked  by  the  citizens  of  Madison  that  a  change 
has  come  over  the  personnel  of  the  University  in  the  last  few 
years;  that  the  students  are  better  dressed,  better  housed,  and 
have  the  manners  of  the  well-to-do.  It  is  evident  that  the 
sons  of  the  rich  have  chosen  the  higher  education.     But  we 

^A^   OF  Txir,     ^  ^^\ 
OS* 


1 6  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

have  also  another  class  of  students,  of  plain  dress,  simple 
manners,  who  do  not  indulge  in  costly  suppers  or  rooms 
decorated  like  a  New  York  club-house,  but  devote  their 
best  efforts  to  the  attainment  of  a  higher  intellectual  and 
moral  level.  But,  although  we  know  that  the  inheritors 
of  wealth  and  poverty  are  here,  we  do  not  propose  to 
make,  and  we  do  not  make,  any  distinction  between  them. 
A  college  is  perhaps  the  only  real  democracy  in  the  world. 
We  delight  to  observe  that  the  children  of  the  humblest  wood- 
chopper  from  Ashland  or  iron-worker  from  Bay  View  meet 
with  the  same  favor  that  is  accorded  the  sons  and  daughters 
of  the  millionaire  or  the  supreme  judge.  We  may,  perhaps, 
be  pardoned  in  feeling  a  special  gratification  that  the  scions  of 
poverty  are  here,  when  we  remember  that  without  the  liber- 
ality of  the  country,  as  expressed  in  public  institutions  like 
this,  the  privilege  and  advantage  of  the  higher  education  it 
would  be  impossible  for  them  to  attain. 

A  few  winters  ago  one  of  these  poor  boys  was  supporting 
himself  by  teaching  a  school  a  part  of  the  day  across  the  lake. 
He  was  accustomed  to  reach  his  work  by  a  three-mile  spin 
across  the  ice  on  skates.  One  March  morning,  on  nearing  the 
further  shore,  he  saw  that  the  ice  had  broken  and  a  wide  gulf 
of  open  water  barred  his  way.  It  was  close  to  the  hour  of 
opening.  He  slipped  his  skates  into  his  pocket,  plunged  in 
and  swam  that  icy  gulf,  and  pressing  the  water  from  his 
clothing,  walked  up  to  his  desk  and  opened  his  school  on 
time. 

I  should  not  altogether  approve  that  feat.  But  it  shows 
the  stuff  of  which  some  students  arc  made.  It  shows  us  what 
we  have  to  expect  when  the  Horatii  and  the  Curiatii  of  the 
twentieth  century  arc  drawn  out  for  combat.  When  it  is 
necessary  for  some  future  Horatius  to  keep  the  bridge,  or  when 
some  gulf  has  again  opened  in  our  national  forum  which  will 
not  close  until  the  nation  has  cast  in  that  which  she  most 
loves,  and  it  becomes  necessary  for  another  Marcus  Curtius  in 
full  armor  to  leap  into  that  gulf,  then  it  will  be  seen  even 


IN  A  UG  URA  TION  OF  PRESIDENT  ADAMS.  I  7 

among  the  graduates  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  that  dar- 
ing for  the  right  and  heroism  of  more  than  knightly  flavor 
have  not  perished  from  the  state. 

In  performing  the  bidding  of  this  Faculty,  as  I  now  do,  by 
offering  you  our  cordial  welcome,  I  can  scarcely  forbear  an 
allusion  to  a  day  twenty-eight  years  ago,  when  a  young  man, 
dififident  and  downcast  at  the  recollection  of  the  many  things 
that  he  did  not  know,  knocked  at  the  door  of  a  great  Univer- 
sity in  a  neighboring  State.  Seven  years  had  passed  since  he 
had  spent  time  over  books.  Tupto  and  Amo  had  been  alto- 
gether driven  out  of  his  ears  by  the  bugles  of  the  Shenandoah 
and  the  guns  of  Gettysburg.  He  didn't  remember  whether 
y2  =  2px  was  the  equation  of  the  parabola  or  the  parachute; 
and  differential  x  and  differential  y  were  altogether  unknown 
quantities.  He  had  listened  awhile  to  the  examination  of  can- 
didates, and  was  concluding  that  the  doors  of  the  higher  edu- 
cation would  not  open  to  him.  At  that  turning  point  of  life 
a  professor  went  out  of  his  way  to  show  the  stranger  a  kind- 
ness and  to  speak  a  word  of  counsel  and  encouragement.  It 
was  an  incident  which  yoti  doubtless  have  long  since  forgotten, 
but  one  which /shall  never  forget.  "Cast  thy  bread  upon 
the  waters  and  it  shall  return  unto  thee  after  many  days." 

This  assemblage  will  pardon  me  for  seeing  some  poetry  as 
well  as  propriety  in  the  fact  that  as  you  to-day  confront  this 
great  company,  most  of  whose  faces  are  unknown  to  you,  and 
assume  new  duties  in  new  surroundings,  you  should  be  met  at 
the  threshold  by  one  whom  you  years  ago  befriended  and  who 
is  charged  with  the  grateful  duty  of  bidding  you  welcome  and 
godspeed. 


ADDRESS  ON  BEHALF  OF  THE  STUDENTS. 


BY  H.  H.  JACOBS.  OF  THE  CLASS  OF  1893. 


PRESIDENT  ADAMS  :  The  students  of  the  University  of 
Wisconsin,  in  all  its  schools  and  departments,  extend  to 
you  their  most  cordial  welcome.  Had  you  been  an  alumnus 
or  a  favorite  professor  of  the  University,  you  could  not  in 
your  new  position  have  more  quickly  won  our  hearts. 

Your  name  and  work  in  the  great  cause  of  education  have 
long  been  familiar  to  us.  By  friendship  and  sympathy  you 
have  exalted  the  relation  of  teacher  and  student  above  types, 
and  offices,  and  institutions.  In  your  thought  that  the  true 
professor  should  be  an  inspiring  companion  to  the  truth -seek- 
ing student,  you  have  enlarged  the  student's  individualism, 
through  methods  of  original  research  and  study,  through  the 
discipline  that  self-government  brings,  and  in  that  larger  lib- 
erty of  selection  of  studies  that  has  gone  far  to  revolutionize 
college  curricula.  This  influence,  bound  by  no  tradition,  sec- 
tionalism, or  formality,  has  extended  even  to  institutions  not 
your  own,  thus  earning  for  you  the  larger  title  The  All -Uni- 
versity President. 

We  recall,  at  this  time,  your  words  to  the  students  of  Cor- 
nell University  on  the  occasion  of  your  induction  as  their 
president:  "The  end  of  all  Universities  is  the  advantage  of 
students  and  nobody  else.  All  the  abounding  resources  that 
have  here  been  brought  together  are  for  them  and  for  their 
successors."  Forty -three  years  ago  yesterday.  Dr.  John 
Lathrop  was  formally  inaugurated  as  the  first  president  of  the 
University  of  Wisconsin.  On  that  occasion,  not  only  was 
there  no  address  of  welcome  by  or  on  behalf  of  the  students, 
but  in  the  two  speeches  that  were  made  there  was  not  one 
word  of  reference  to  them.  In  those  early  days  when  the 
student  body  numbered  less  than  eighty,  when  every  student 

19 


20  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

was  obliged  to  present  testimonials  of  good  moral  character 
and  attend  chapel  daily  at  the  morning  hour,  when  he  strove 
for  merit  marks  on  the  permanent  deportment  record  of  the 
faculty,  —  at  that  time,  I  say,  the  mutual  relation  and  common 
interest  of  professor  and  student  had  not  received  the  empha- 
sis in  the  educational  world  which  you,  sir,  as  perhaps  no  other 
great  educator,  have  helped  to  give  it. 

College  discipline  has,  in  the  last  generation,  passed  through 
an  evolution ;  and  the  central  principle  of  this  change  is 
expressed  in  that  magic  word  of  modern  life  —  cooperation.  In 
progressive  college  government  the  University  of  Wisconsin  is 
in  the  forefront.  For  years  it  has  practiced  your  maxim  that 
the  government  of  students  should  be  more  largely  self  gov- 
ernment, and  has  dealt  with  its  students  as  "incipient  men 
and  women,"  and  not  as  "overgrown  girls  and  boys."  If  the 
quaint  rules  of  a  generation  ago  seem  to  us  absurd  and  impos- 
sible, what  would  they  of  the  last  generation  have  thought  at 
the  spectacle  of  a  college  president  presiding,  not  in  his  official 
capacity,  but  simply  as  an  individual,  over  a  mass  meeting  of 
students  called  in  the  interest  of  a  college  boat  house.  That 
spectacle  is  unique  and  typical  of  the  new  regime.  It  means 
the  [death  of  the  traditional  hostility  between  college  student 
and  faculty,  and  gives  emphasis  to  the  identity  of  their  inter- 
ests. It  means  an  end  of  college  riots,  and  ushers  in  the  larger 
relations  of  friendship  and  sympathy.  The  faculty  should 
stand  to  the  student  "in  loco  parentis,"  said  the  old  rules,  and 
so  it  did  —  officially,  coldly,  and  with  the  stress  of  duty.  You, 
sir,  come  to  us  as  you  said,  "somewhat  as  a  father  would  come 
to  a  large  family."  You  offer  us  your  sympathy,  friendship, 
and  fatherly  advice,  and  urge  us  to  use  you.  You  have  taken 
high  ground  in  the  matter  of  college  discii)linc,  and  the  stu- 
dents of  old  Wisconsin  will  make  every  effort  to  come  up  to 
your  high  level,  and  will  meet  your  trust  and  confidence  with 
heartiest  sympathy  and  most  cordial  cooj)eration.  You  have 
said  in  your  published  writings  that  every  student  should  be 
regarded  as  an  individual  person  and  not  as  a  member  of  any 


IN  A  UG  URA  TION  OF  PRESIDENT  A  DA  MS.  2 1 

class  or  organization ;  that  students  are  citizens,  and  that  civil 
authorities  should  regard  them  so  and  deal  with  them  as  such. 
We  heartily  accept  these  principles.  The  false  relation  that 
formerly  existed  between  student  and  faculty  has  gone  forever. 
We,  as  students,  shall  not  be  laggards  in  the  march  toward  an 
ideal  college  government.  Under  your  predecessors  we  have 
enjoyed  the  larger  liberties  which  you  have  helped  to  bring  to 
the  college  students  of  America.  We  shall  hold  those  liber- 
ties as  a  sacred  trust,  believing  that  with  the  present  freedom 
your  slightest  request  will  yield  a  more  general  and  hearty 
obedience  than  the  most  binding  restrictions. 

You  bring  us  rich  stores  of  learning.  You  give  point  and 
prominence  to  our  own  enlarging  powers.  Your  very  name 
has  already  accentuated  our  growing  importance  in  the  educa- 
tional world.  We  prize  you,  sir,  not  for  the  reputation  you 
give  us,  but  for  your  wealth  of  learning,  for  your  ripe  experi- 
ence, your  Christian  character,  and  above  all  for  those  intel- 
lectual and  moral  habits  which  reveal  to  us  the  true  method  of 
attaining  knowledge  and  character. 

We  realize  that  the  mere  bigness  of  an  institution  in  build- 
ings or  in  numbers  does  not  constitute  its  greatness,  and  we 
rejoice  to-day  in  your  inauguration  as  president  because  it 
means  emphasis  upon  those  things  which  do  make  our  insti- 
tution great  —  the  honest  labor,  the  virtue,  the  character  of  its 
membership. 

You  are  Wisconsin's  seventh  president.  In  that  perfect 
number  of  the  Jews,  I  seem  to  see  an  augury  for  good.  For, 
according  to  the  ancients,  there  were  seven  senses,  seven  vir- 
tues, and  seven  wise  men.  Six  times  seven  were  the  genera- 
tions of  our  Lord,  and  to-day  completes  the  same  magic  cycle 
of  years  in  our  University's  history.  For  seven  years  you 
were  president  of  Cornell  University.  Surely,  if  we  still 
believed  in  propitious  gods  and  favorable  omens,  we  could  in 
these  alone  prophesy  for  yourself  and  the  University  a  pros- 
perous future.  But  we  believe  with  you  that  success  lies  with 
ourselves,  not  in  our  stars.      Those  faithful  years  as  professor 


22  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

at  Ann  Arbor,  the  seven  years  of  successful  administration  as 
president  of  Cornell  University,  are  more  than  an  omen  of 
good  and  more  prophetic  than  lambent  flame  or  mysterious 
music,  for,  couj)led  with  your  wealth  of  learning,  your  ripe 
character,  they  are  the  earnest,  the  sure  pledge,  of  the  good 
things  that  must  come  to  Wisconsin  under  your  wise  and 
inspiring  leadership.  Wisconsin  has  had  a  brilliant  past.  She 
shall  have  a  glorious  future,  and  in  all  your  plannings  for  that 
future  I  pledge  you  the  unswerving  loyalty  of  the  entire  stu- 
dent body. 


ADDRESS  ON   BEHALF  OF    THE   ALUMNI. 


BY  THE  HONORABLE  JAMES  L.  HIGH,  LL.D.,  OF  THE 
CLASS  OF  1864. 


CONVENED  to  witness  the  formal  installation  of  a 
distinguished  scholar  and  educator  as  president  of  this 
university,  the  occasion  affords  fit  opportunity  to  note  the 
relation  of  the  State  to  the  University,  and  to  mark  the  just 
boundaries  which  define  the  participation  of  the  state  in  the 
higher  education.  The  origin  of  state  assistance  in  the  work 
of  education,  so  far  as  concerns  the  states  of  the  Northwest, 
may  be  traced  back  through  a  century  of  state  and  con- 
gressional legislation  to  the  ordinance  enacted  by  Congress, 
July  13,  1787,  for  the  government  of  the  Northwest  Territory. 
Six  articles  were  declared  by  that  ordinance  to  be  articles  of 
solemn  compact  between  the  original  states  and  the  people 
and  states  in  such  territory,  which  should  forever  remain 
unalterable  unless  by  common  consent.  By  the  third  of  these 
articles  it  was  declared  that  "  religion,  morality  and  knowl- 
edge being  necessary  to  good  government  and  the  happiness 
of  mankind,  schools  and  the  means  of  education  shall  forever 
be  encouraged."  By  this  simple  declaration  in  their  funda- 
mental law  the  states  which  have  been  from  time  to  time 
carved  out  of  the  territory  of  the  Northwest  were  pledged, 
even  in  advance  of  their  creation,  to  the  policy  of  fostering 
and  promoting  education,  with  no  limit  other  than  their  own 
discretion  as  to  whether  such  assistance  should  be  confined  to 
its  simpler,  or  should  extend  to  its  higher  forms.  As  if 
inspired  with  the  genius  of  prophecy,  the  framers  of  that 
ordinance  seem  to  have  foreseen  with  undimmed  vision  and 
with  unalterable  faith  the  growth  of  a  mighty  empire  which 
should  people  the  Northwest  Territory  with  teeming  millions 
of  peaceful,  happy  and  prosperous  people. 

23 


24  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

The  policy  of  thus  forever  stamping  upon  the  organic  law 
of  the  territory  this  salutary  provision  for  promoting  all  means 
of  education  has  been  fully  justified  by  the  event.  The  lapse 
of  a  century  has  transformed  that  great  wilderness  into  five 
imperial  states  with  an  aggregate  population  exceeding  thir- 
teen millions  of  people.  The  orginal  compact  concerning 
education  thus  entered  into  has  never  been,  and  in  human 
probability  will  never  be  altered.  With  the  growth  of  these 
commonwealths  from  their  original  condition  as  parts  of  the 
Northwest  Territory,  followed  by  individual  territorial  organ- 
ization, and  ultimately  by  complete  statehood,  the  third  article 
of  compact  has  stood  as  the  Magna  Charta  under  whose 
supreme  authority  has  been  inaugurated  and  carried  forward  a 
system  of  public  education  which,  without  invidious  compari- 
son, may  be  justly  said  to  fully  equal  that  of  the  older  states 
of  the  Atlantic  seaboard. 

It  is  a  fact  of  especial  significance  that  within  the  borders 
of  the  great  Northwest  Territory  thus  forever  dedicated  as 
the  home  of  the  school -house  and  of  the  college,  lie  the  two 
states  of  Michigan  and  Wisconsin,  whose  record  marks  the 
extreme  advance  in  fostering,  under  state  supervision,  the 
higher  education.  The  story  of  the  growth  of  the  universities 
of  these  sister  states,  the  former  slightly  exceeding,  our  own 
just  falling  short  of  half  a  century  of  duration,  is  indeed  the 
story  of  the  growth  and  development  of  the  principle  of 
state  assistance  in  fostering  college  and  university  education. 
Originating  in  doubt  and  uncertainty,  opposed  in  its  earlier 
history  in  this  state  by  passion  and  prejudice,  and  sometimes 
by  religious  bigotry  upon  the  part  of  denominational  colleges, 
this  principle  has  steadily  made  its  way  until  theory  has  at 
last  become  fact,  and  what  was  formerly  experiment  has 
become  the  established,  and,  let  us  trust,  the  unalterable 
policy  of  the  state.  How  marked  has  been  this  advance  will 
be  best  remembered  by  the  older  alumni  and  friends  of  this 
University  who  have  witnessed  its  steady  growth  from  those 
earlier  years  of  doubt  and  apathy  and  prejudice  to  its  present 


IN  A  UG  URA  TION  OF  PRESIDENT  ABAMS.  2  5 

assured  function  of  imparting,  by  liberal  endowment  under 
wise  instruction,  and  in  the  name  and  by  the  authority  of  the 
state,  the  most  advanced  knowledge  to  her  sons  and  daughters 
who  gather  here  from  year  to  year  in  constantly  increasing 
numbers. 

Here  too,  in  the  new  Northwest,  was  the  most  fitting 
theater  upon  which  to  test  the  experiment  thus  inaugurated 
half  a  century  ago.  A  population  still  dealing  with  the  more 
material  and  practical  questions  incident  to  the  formation  of 
new  states,  and  lacking  the  wealth  which  could  avail  of  the 
advantages  offered  by  the  colleges  of  New  England,  presented 
conditions  most  favorable  for  determining  how  far  the  state 
might  safely  go  in  supplying  the  growing  demands  of  its  citi- 
zens for  educational  advantages  of  a  higher  order  than  those 
afforded  by  the  common  schools.  Amid  such  surroundings 
the  experiment  has  gone  forward  until  it  is  coming  to  be 
accepted  as  the  general  verdict  of  all  who  have  studied  the 
problem,  that,  whatever  may  be  done  by  private  benefaction 
or  under  denominational  auspices  in  promoting  the  more 
advanced  forms  and  methods  of  education  may,  likewise,  be 
done  as  well,  and  often  better,  by  the  state  itself.  And  while, 
under  a  government  of  the  people,  whatever  savors  of  pater- 
nalism necessarily  seems,  when  tested  by  purely  economic 
standards,  to  appear  paradoxical  and  illogical,  yet  in  attaining 
the  larger  ends  of  national  life  which  lie  beyond  the  line  of 
its  mere  material  prosperity,  and  which  pertain  to  its  intel- 
lectual developnlent,  the  problem  transcends  the  mere  laws  of 
supply  and  demand,  or  of  the  production  and  exchange  of 
material  commodities.  The  question  is  no  longer  one  of  mere 
political  economy,  to  be  governed  by  the  hard  and  fast 
rules  which  apply  to  the  commercial  exchange ;  rather,  let 
us  say,  that  the  wise  paternalism  which  prompts  the  state  to 
supply  to  all  of  its  citizens  at  first  cost,  the  highest  educa- 
tional advantages  is,  indeed,  the  wisest  policy,  even  upon 
purely  economic  grounds,  since  it  best  promotes  the  higher 
growth  and  ultimate  prosperity  of  the  state  itself. 


26  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

The  wisdom  of  promoting,  under  state  auspices,  the 
higher  forms  of  education,  has,  at  least  in  the  western  states, 
long  since  passed  beyond  the  stage  of  experiment  and  has 
become  an  assured  fact.  If  further  justification  of  this  salu- 
tary policy  were  needed,  it  would  be  found  in  the  rapid  and 
steady  growth  of  state  institutions  of  learning  as  compared 
with  denominational  colleges.  So  acute  an  observer  of  our 
institutions  as  Mr.  Bryce,  who  made  a  special  study  of  state 
education  in  the  West,  has  not  failed  to  note  in  his  "American 
Commonwealth  "  the  struggle  which  is  still  going  on  in  the 
middle  and  western  states  between  the  state  universities  and 
the  smaller  denominational  colleges,  and  the  rapid  develop- 
ment of  the  former  as  compared  with  the  latter.  He  observes 
that  as  the  alumni  of  the  state  institutions  become  more 
numerous,  and  more  influential  in  public  life,  and  as  it  becomes 
more  and  more  clearly  apparent  that  the  smaller  colleges, 
hampered  by  lack  of  sufficient  endowment,  are  unable  to  pro- 
vide the  libraries,  museums,  laboratories,  and  complicated 
appliances  necessary  for  university  education,  the  balance  of 
power  seems  likely  to  incline  in  favor  of  the  state  institutions ; 
and  that  it  is  within  the  bounds  of  reasonable  probability  that 
these  will  steadily  rise  to  the  level  of  the  great  eastern  uni- 
versities, while  many  of  the  denominational  colleges  will  sub- 
side to  the  rank  of  places  of  preparatory  training. 

One  feature,  also,  which  he  observes  in  American  univer- 
sities generally,  as  in  those  of  Scotland,  is  especially  notice- 
able in  the  leading  universities  under  state  control  in  the  West. 
It  may  best  be  stated  in  his  own  words  ;  that  "  while  the  Ger- 
man universities  have  been  popular  but  not  free,  while  the 
English  universities  have  been  free  but  not  popular,  the  Ameri- 
can universities  have  been  both  free  and  popular."  And  yet 
Mr.  Bryce  has  failed  to  note  that  this  result  is  more  natural 
and  inevitable  in  institutions  suj)[)orted  by  the  state  than  in 
those  which  are  under  private  control.  Whatever  else  may 
be  justly  said  against  the  jjolicy  of  university  education  by 
the  state,  from  the  very  conditions  of  the  case  it  is  absolutely 


IN  A  UGURA  TION  OF  PRESIDENT  ADAMS.  27 

free  from  even  the  suggestion  of  religious  bias  or  sectarian 
instruction.  Whether  such  a  complete  sundering  of  religious 
and  secular  training  is  productive  always  of  the  best  results  is 
a  question  foreign  to  this  occasion.  But  it  is  certain  that  it  is 
the  only  condition  under  which  state  instruction  is  possible 
under  a  system  of  constitutional  government  which  has  for- 
ever divorced  the  church  from  the  state.  And  any  system  of 
education  which,  in  the  name  of  the  state,  should  seek  to  blend 
religious  with  secular  instruction,  would  be  so  utterly  repug- 
nant to  the  genius  of  our  institutions  as  to  find  no  toleration 
or  support  from  any  intelligent  friend  of  religion  of  whatever 
sect  or  faith. 

The  fact  that  most  of  the  eastern  colleges,  including 
several  of  those  which  have  attained  the  rank  of  universities, 
are  still  fettered  by  certain  religious  and  sectarian  conditions, 
brings  out  in  clear  relief,  and  as  more  consistent  with  our 
form  of  government,  the  absolutely  unsectarian  character  of 
all  state  institutions  for  the  promotion  of  learning.  That  such 
eastern  colleges  have  attained  so  large  a  degree  of  prosperity, 
and  have  so  nearly  approached  the  best  European  standards 
of  university  work  has  resulted,  not  because  of,  but  rather  in 
spite  of  the  sectarian  influences  which  a  mistaken  zeal  in  a  ruder 
and  more  illiberal  age  impressed  upon  their  foundation.  With- 
out such  religious  environment  their  growth  and  prosperity,  in 
this  century  at  least,  would  doubtless  have  been  far  more 
marked  and  conspicuous.  And  the  absolute  freedom  of  state 
universities  from  all  religious  fetters,  however  slight,  will,  more 
and  more,  as  the  years  go  on,  tend  to  popularize  and  strengthen 
them  in  the  affections  of  a  people  singularly  sensitive,  as  we 
are,  to  the  slightest  trace  of  religious  coercion  or  sectarian 
control. 

What,  then,  is  the  just  relation  which  the  state  sustains 
toward  the  university,  and  what  the  function  of  the  state  as 
regards  the  higher  education?  It  is  to  do  all  in  the  name  and 
by  the  authority  of  the  state  which  may  be  done  by  denomi- 
national zeal  or  by  private  benefaction  ;  to  supplement  but  not 


28  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

to  supplant  the  work  more  imperfectly  done  by  poorly 
equipped  colleges  under  private  control ;  to  furnish  a  maximum 
of  educational  advantages  at  a  minimum  of  cost ;  and  to  place 
within  the  reach  of  its  humblest  citizens  an  opportunity  for  the 
most  advanced  technical  education,  assured  that  in  so  doing 
it  is  best  subserving  the  great  purpose  declared  in  the  ordi- 
nance of  1787,  of  forever  encouraging  the  means  of  education, 
for  the  better  promotion  of  "good  government  and  the  happi- 
ness of  mankind." 

Nor  need  there  be  any  apprehension  that  the  work  of  the 
state,  even  under  the  most  generous  policy,  in  thus  providing 
for  its  citizens  the  most  liberal  appliances  for  acquiring  the 
higher  education,  will  wholly  supplant  the  more  modest  work 
done  by  smaller  colleges  under  sectarian  or  private  control. 
The  problem  of  the  relations  between  the  two  systems  is  not 
necessarily  a  question  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  since  there 
is  room  for  both,  and  room  to  spare.  The  higher  learning  is 
in  no  danger ;  the  smaller  institutions  need  have  no  fear.  The 
demand  for  all  forms  of  education  above  that  of  the  common 
school  is  increasing  in  a  constantly  accelerating  ratio,  and 
with  even  more  rapidity  than  the  marvelous  increase  in  our 
population.  A  century  of  growth  has  increased  our  popula- 
tion from  three  to  sixty-two  millions,  and  still  the  tide  which 
knows  no  ebb  moves  from  the  old  world  to  the  new.  Still 
with  restless  energy  the  resistless  wave  of  immigration  sweeps 
westward,  and  sweeps  on.  The  alien  of  yesterday  becomes 
the  immigrant  of  to-day  and  the  citizen  of  to-morrow.  America 
stands  with  all-embracing  arm,  gathering  her  miscellaneous 
sons  from  every  sea  and  shore  and  binding  them  into  one 
homogeneous  and  united  people.  With  this  rapid  increase  in 
population,  and  with  a  corresponding  growth  in  wealth  and 
material  prosperity,  comes  always  an  increasing  demand  for 
the  higher  education  which  taxes  to  the  utmost  all  e.xisting 
appliances  and  institutions,  whether  public  or  private.  In  a 
more  literal  sense  than  that  of  scripture,  the  harvest  is  j)lcnty, 
the  laborers  are  all  too  few. 


IN  A  UGURA  TION  OF  PRESIDENT  ADAMS.  29 

That  the  state  universities,  especially  in  the  states  of  the 
Northwest,  are  keeping  fully  abreast  with  these  demands  upon 
them,  no  unprejudiced  observer  will  deny.  That  they  are 
steadily  gaining  upon  the  older  institutions  in  the  eastern 
states  is  equally  true.  It  would  be  premature  to  assert  that 
they  have  yet  attained  the  rank  of  Harvard  or  of  Yale  in  our 
own  country,  or  of  those  ancient  seats  of  learning  in  England 
and  upon  the  continent,  rich  with  endowments  of  material 
wealth,  but  richer  far  in  the  centuries  of  history  and  of  tradi- 
tion which  surround  them,  and  in  the  splendid  heritage  of  his- 
toric names  of  their  sons  who  have  shaped  the  destinies  of  the 
old  world  and  the  new.  As  you  stand  within  the  ivied  walls 
of  the  many  colleges  which  form  the  ancient  University  of 
Oxford,  every  stone  of  which  is  rich  with  history  and  tradi- 
tion, you  may  seem  to  see,  with  stately  tread,  eight  centuries 
of  English  history  pass  by. 

Not  alone  in  present  wealth,  in  stately  buildings  or  in 
costly  appliances,  but  in  the  memories,  the  traditions  and  the 
associations  of  all  the  past  lies  the  real  endowment  of  a 
great  university.  It  is  a  growth,  not  a  creation  ;  it  is  born, 
not  made.  But  let  us  gladly  note,  and  hopefully  remember 
that  the  cause  of  state  education  keeps  steady  pace  and  goes 
side  by  side  with  the  higher  education  as  administered  by  uni- 
versities under  private  control.  The  ideal  state  university 
may  still  be  far  in  the  future.  We  may  be  moving  onward 
with  slow,  and  sometimes  faltering  steps,  but  we  are  moving 
onward,  not  backward.  Pledged,  let  us  hope  irrevocably,  to 
the  policy  of  placing  the  highest  educational  advantages  within 
the  reach  of  its  poorest  citizens,  the  state  can  afford  to  take 
no  backward  step.  And  when  our  college  walls  shall  have 
grown  gray  with  the  centuries  and  shall  have  been  enriched 
with  traditions  of  a  historic  past,  may  this  university,  still 
hallowed  in  the  recollection  of  her  loyal  alumni,  and  in  the 
affections  of  a  grateful  people,  forever  stand  as  the  foremost 
agency  of  an  imperial  state  in  promoting  the  higher  education. 


ADDRESS  IN  BEHALF  OF  THE  STATE. 


BY  HIS  EXCELLENCY,  GOVERNOR  GEO.  W.  PECK. 


GOVERNOR  PECK  was  next  introduced,  and  in  his  humor- 
ous way  told  of  the  relation  existing  between  the  common- 
wealth and  the  university  and  higher  education.  His  address 
was  pithy  and  to  the  point,  and  was  characteristic  of  his 
excellency.      He  said : 

Mr.  President  :  It  is  doubtful  if  the  founders  of  this 
university  contemplated  the  greatness  of  the  institution  that 
would  grow  up  here.  When  the  first  modest  building  was 
erected  there  was  very  little  of  Wisconsin,  very  few  children 
to  educate,  and  a  prospect  that  was^  not  flattering  for  a  great 
institution  like  the  one  by  which  we  are  surrounded  to-day. 
Those  who  were  foremost  in  the  enterprise  felt  that  there  was 
need  for  some  education  higher  than  could  have  been  received 
in  the  country  school,  and  as  the  facilities  for  sending  children 
to  the  colleges  of  the  East  were  not  great,  this  university  was 
considered  necessary.  The  old  pioneers  who  came  across  the 
Allegheny  mountains  and  through  the  valleys  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, noticed  a  strong  odor  about  Oil  creek  and  its  vicinity,  but 
they  did  not  contemplate  that  within  a  third  of  a  century  that 
strong  odor  would  develop  a  commerce  that  would  make  men 
worth  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars,  and  that  one  man,  then 
a  child,  would  endow  a  great  university  in  the  State  of  Illi- 
nois with  millions  of  dollars,  to  compete  with  this  modest 
Wisconsin  affair.  They  had  read  of  the  gold  mines  in  Cali- 
fornia, but  they  little  dreamed  that  a  briefless  lawyer  in  Port 
Washington,  in  this  State,  would  emigrate  to  California  and 
become  worth  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars,  and  endow  a 
university  with  so  many  millions  that  it  must  be  a  success, 
whether  it  has  students  or  not,  and  compete  with  our  own  state 
university.     They  had  no  means  of  knowing  that  the  Milwau- 

31 


32  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

kee  butcher  would  eventually  become  worth  so  many  millions 
of  dollars  that  it  would  become  necessary  for  him  to  give  some 
of  those  millions  for  educational  purposes  in  order  to  make 
himself  happy,  and  thus  compete  again  with  this  state  uni- 
versity ;  but  all  these  things  have  been  realized,  and  the  gen- 
tlemen who  are  the  agents  of  the  State  of  Wisconsin  in  main- 
taining this  university  find  \hat  they  have  much  competition, 
and  yet,  what  must  they  do  ?  If  the  motto  of  the  State  of 
Wisconsin  were  the  word  "backward,"  it  is  easy  to  see  what 
would  be  the  duty  of  the  managers  of  this  university ;  if  the 
motto  of  the  State  of  Wisconsin  were  "stand  still,"  then  it 
would  be  easy  for  any  man  to  say  what  should  be  the  course 
of  this  university  ;  but  the  motto  of  Wisconsin  is  "forward," 
and  that  one  word  must  show  to  you  that  the  people  of  Wis- 
consin, who  back  this  university,  mean  that  it  shall  go  forward 
and  not  backward,  and  that  it  shall  not  stand  still.  You  must 
remember  that  the  support  of  this  university  comes  from  the 
hard-earned  money  of  those  who  pay  taxes,  whereas  the  sup- 
port of  other  universities  comes  from  the  millions  that  are 
made  from  the  oil  that  bubbles  from  the  earth,  or  from  the 
gold,  which  Wisconsin  people  have  no  means  of  digging  from 
the  earth,  so  you  must  be  careful,  and  yet  you  must  compete 
with  these  great  universities,  with  their  immense  endowments. 
You  must  do  as  business  men  do.  You  have  a  reputation  for 
the  output  of  this  university  which  is  equal  to  the  reputation 
of  the  output  of  any  manufacturing  establishment  in  Wiscon- 
sin. The  output  must  be  increased  gradually,  and  its  market 
value  must  be  kept  up,  if  not  increased  constantly.  The 
manufacturer  of  a  great  article  of  machinery  employs  experts 
in  every  department  in  which  a  portion  of  that  machinery  is 
made,  and  when  the  comi)lctcd  article  is  j)ut  upon  the  market 
he  points  with  pride  to  it,  and  says  to  the  world:  "We  can 
make  as  good  an  article,  or  better,  to-morrow  and  the  next 
day."  The  university  must  be  in  the  same  position.  It  sends 
forth  these  young  men  into  the  world  and  points  with  pride  to 
them.     It  must  be  in  a  position  to  send  out  this  work  another 


IN  A  UG  URA  TION  OF  PRESIDENT  A  DA  MS.  3  3 

year  and  another,  even  better  equipped  for  contact  with  the 
world,  and  to  make  a  success. 

The  reputation  of  Wisconsin  is  at  stake  in  the  output  of 
this  university,  and  it  must  not  be  allowed  to  suffer  in  any 
way  in  the  future.  Every  young  man  or  woman  who  graduates 
from  this  university  is  an  advertisement  of  the  work  of  the 
faculty,  as  much  as  a  steam  engine  is  an  advertisement  for  the 
shop  that  turns  it  out.  You  take  the  crude  material  and  give 
every  portion  of  it  strength  it  knew  not  before,  and  the  indi- 
viduality of  each  teacher  is  shown  to  some  extent  in  the 
finished  work  turned  out  on  graduation  day.  If  there  proves 
to  be  a  weakness  in  any  portion  of  the  graduate,  it  can  be 
traced  back  and  the  blame  given  to  that  particular  workman 
who  has  slighted  his  work  in  the  process  of  education,  the 
same  as  a  defect  in  a  portion  of  a  steam  engine  can  be  traced 
to  the  workman  who  has  neglected  some  important  element  of 
its  construction.  If  investigation  proves  that  the  weakness  is 
caused  by  the  material  which  is  put  into  the  engine  or  into  the 
graduate  of  the  university,  then  the  faculty  is  not  to  blame  ; 
neither  is  the  workman  who  built  the  engine. 

A  university  that  is  endowed  by  a  million  and  a  half  of 
taxpayers  is  on  a  sounder  basis  than  any  endowed  by  private 
subscription.  Gold  mines  may  cease  to  pay,  or  the  watering 
of  the  stock  of  the  gold  mines  may  render  it  valueless  ;  oil 
may  cease  to  flow  from  the  ground  or  become  unfashionable 
as  a  means  of  lighting  the  world.  Every  man  may  become 
his  own  pork  packer,  and  a  corner  in  pork  may  become  an 
impossibility  to  endow  a  university  or  a  school,  but  taxpaying 
for  educational  purposes  will  never  go  out  of  fashion,  and  the 
taxpayer  will  always  be  glad  that  he  is  in  a  position  to  assist 
in  the  education  of  other  people's  children  as  well  as  his 
own. 

You  are  in  position  to  be  of  great  assistance  to  the  youth 
of  other  states  as  well  as  Wisconsin,  and  the  youth  from  Flor- 
ida or  Nebraska  who  is  educated  at  the  Wisconsin  University 
loses  his  identity  as  a  product  of  Florida  or  Nebraska  and 


34  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

becomes  a  product  of  Wisconsin.  The  man  who  desires  to 
come  from  another  state  to  this  and  exercise  the  elective  fran- 
chise must  live  in  this  state  a  year.  If  he  desires  to  procure 
a  divorce  he  must  live  in  the  state  a  year;  but  the  young  man 
who  desires  an  education,  which  is  greater  than  the  elective 
franchise  and  greater  than  the  divorce,  has  only  to  appear  in 
the  state  of  Wisconsin  with  sufficient  money  to  pay  his  tuition 
and  he  can  be  turned  out  after  a  season  of  hard  work  an  alum- 
nus of  the  University  of  Wisconsin  and  a  credit  to  himself  and 
the  state.  The  education  which  you  give  to  the  young  will 
make  them  capable  of  building  an  engine  or  writing  a  consti- 
tution for  a  new  state;  will  make  them  capable  of  making 
laws,  as  well  as  executing  them;  will  fit  them  for  the  White 
House  or  the  little  red  school  house,  where  they  will  be  an 
honor  in  their  position.  You  may  teach  them  to  milk  a  cow 
or  to  bleed  a  client,  and  each  will  be  done  as  well  as  can  be 
done  by  a  graduate  of  any  institution  of  learning  that  is  known 
to  man ;  but  what  your  great  University  needs  above  all  things 
is  to  have  the  people  of  the  State  of  Wisconsin  know  what  it 
is.  But  one  man  in  a  thousand  of  the  taxpayers  of  the  state 
knows  what  the  University  is,  and  that  one  man  knows  it 
because  he  has  read  of  it  and  seen  a  picture  of  it  in  the  blue 
book.  What  is  needed  is  that  you  advertise  this  University  as 
men  would  advertise  any  business  that  is  successful.  The  man 
who  brews  beer  lets  it  be  known  the  world  over  that  his  is 
better  than  any  other;  you  brew  brains,  that  are  more  valuable 
than  anything  that  is  turned  out  of  a  manufactory.  Let  the 
people  know  this.  Let  as  fine  ])icturcs  as  can  be  procured  of 
all  the  buildings  about  this  University  be  sent  abroad  through- 
out the  state  and  land,  that  jjcople  may  know  that  it  is  not  a 
University  in  name  only,  but  in  all  that  the  name  implies.  Let 
your  good  work  go  on  under  the  new  administration  of  this 
grand  institution  until  the  time  shall  come  that  the  battle  cry, 
or  the  grand  hailing  sign  of  distress,  U'Rah,  'Rah,  Wis-con- 
sin!  wherever  heard,  on  the  battle  field,  in  the  Salvation  army, 
calling  sinners  to  rejientance,  in  any  place  that  the  song  may 


INAUGURATION  OF  PRESIDENT  ADAMS. 


35 


go  forth,  may  cause  people  to  raise  their  hats  and  say:    "This 
is  Wisconsin,  the  grandest  state  in  all  the  Union," 

President  Adams,  in  behalf  of  the  State  of  Wisconsin  and 
all  its  people,  I  welcome  you  heartily  to  what  I  believe  to  be 
a  long  life  of  great  usefulness.  You  have  come  from  other 
fields,  where  you  have  made  a  name  second  to  that  of  no  man 
engaged  in  the  educational  field  of  the  whole  world.  May 
your  stay  with  us  be  pleasant  to  you,  and  all  whom  you  love, 
and  the  state  believes  you  will  make  better  all  with  whom  you 
come  in  contact,  and  impress  your  work  upon  every  student 
that  comes  under  your  kindly  hand. 


ADDRESS  ON   BEHALF  OF  SISTER 
UNIVERSITIES. 


BY  PRESIDENT  JAMES  B.  ANGELL,  LL.D.,  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  MICHIGAN. 


MR.  PRESIDENT:  I  count  it  a  great  honor  to  be  invited 
to  represent  here  so  choice  a  constituency  as  the  Sister 
Universities.  In  their  name,  I  beg  to  extend  to  this  institution 
their  heartiest  congratulations  on  this  auspicious  occasion,  and 
to  give  utterance,  in  words  however  inadequate,  to  their 
unfeigned  joy  at  the  great  and  increasing  prosperity  of  this 
University. 

If,  as  is  commonly  believed,  it  has  ever  been  true  that 
worthy  universities  and  colleges  are  jealous  of  each  other's 
success,  the  day  of  such  petty  and  unbecoming  jealousy  has 
passed.  Every  good  and  strong  university  really  rejoices  in 
the  prosperity  of  every  other  good  university  or  college,  be- 
cause, in  a  large  sense,  it  is  true  that  the  prosperity  of  each 
helps  the  prosperity  of  all.  If  one  receives  large  gifts,  the 
benefactors  of  others  are  stimulated  to  give.  If  one,  by 
brave  and  prudent  experimentation,  improves  its  niethods  of 
administration  or  of  instruction,  all  others,  that  will,  may  reap 
the  benefit  of  the  discovery.  There  is  no  educational  trust 
or  patent  right  which  holds  a  monopoly  of  any  good  educa- 
tional idea.  The  increasing  intimacy  of  the  professors  of  various 
colleges,  the  growing  custom,  formerly  almost  unknown, 
of  their  passing  from  the  Faculty  of  one  institution  to  that  of 
another,  the  commendable  practice  of  making  public  by  presi- 
dent's reports  and  other  publications,  the  inner  life  of  univer- 
sities, have  enabled  every  institution  of  higher  education  to 
profit  by  all  the  improvements  in  any  other,  and  thus  to  share, 
in  some  degree,  in  the  prosperity  of  every  other.  This  is  one 
of  the  reasons  why  it  has  come  to  pass  that  in  the  last  twenty 

37 


38  UNIVERSITY  OF  VVISCONSIX. 

years  the  American  colleges  and  universities  have  made  a 
greater  advance  in  the  range  and  cjuality  of  their  work,  in  the 
enlargement  of  their  endowments,  and  in  the  number  of  stu- 
dents, than  they  had  made  in  half  a  century  before.  And  it 
is  but  simple  justice  to  say,  that  well  up  in  the  front  rank  of 
the  most  rapidly  advancing  institutions  has  been  this  Univer- 
sity of  Wisconsin.  We  rejoice  with  you  most  heartily  in  your 
progress,  and  yet  more  in  the  prophecies,  which  we  read  in  all 
the  signs  we  see  about  us,  of  your  still  more  signal  prosperity 
to  come. 

I  trust  the  Sister  Universities,  in  whose  behalf  I  am  per- 
mitted to  speak,  will  allow  me  to  say  a  special  word  in  behalf 
of  the  University  of  Michigan,  which  I,  as  a  delegate,  par- 
ticularly represent.  That  university  is  one  of  your  nearest 
neighbors.  She  existed  in  a  somewhat  different  form  under 
the  Territorial  government  of  Michigan,  when  that  govern- 
ment had  jurisdiction  over  all  the  present  domain  of  Wiscon- 
sin. She  has  furnished  some  of  her  choicest  sons  for  your 
Faculty.  You  have  just  been  charmed  by  the  brilliant  elo- 
quence of  one  of  them.  Another  is  your  accomplished  pro- 
fessor of  astronomy.  As  I  entered  this  room  I  passed  by  the 
portrait  of  his  predecessor  in  office,  perhaps  the  most  brilliant 
genius  our  university  ever  graduated,  James  C.  Watson,  who 
by  his  astronomical  discoveries,  before  he  was  forty  years  of 
age,  wrote  his  name  and  that  of  his  university  among  the 
stars,  to  be  read  and  known  of  all  men,  and  who  to  your  great 
.sorrow  and  ours  was  too  early  cut  down,  while  in  the  very 
prime  of  his  strength.  It  is  the  University  of  Michigan,  too, 
which  is  the  Alma  Mater  of  the  distinguished  president,  whom 
we  have  met  to  induct  formally  into  office.  That  university, 
therefore,  has  the  right  to  cherish,  j)erhai)s,  a  deeper  interest 
in  this  glad  and  auspicious  celebration  than  any  other  univer- 
sity excejjt  your  own.  It  is  with  a  fond  mother's  pride  and  joy 
that  she  commends  to  you  her  honored  son,  and  pronounces 
her  benediction  on  the  ties  that  henceforth  bind  him  and  you 
together.     We,  his  old  colleagues,  know  better  than  you  can 


IN  A  UG  URA  TION  OF  PRESIDENT  A  DA  MS.  3  9 

yet  know,  how  richly  he  is  furnished  in  his  own  special  branch 
of  research,  how  large  is  his  knowledge  of  the  best  ideas  of 
our  time  concerning  university  work,  how  wide  is  his  acquaint- 
ance with  the  wisest  teachers  in  the  land,  how  firm  is  his  grasp 
of  the  principles  of  administration  which  must  be  mastered 
in  these  days  by  the  president  of  a  great  university.  The 
impressions  of  his  ample  equipment  for  the  leadership  of  an 
institution  like  this,  which  you  are  about  to  receive  from  his 
erudite  address,  will  be  only  deepened  as  the  months  go  on. 
Long  may  he  be  spared  to  you,  to  promote  the  success  of  this 
university,  and  to  rejoice  with  you  in  the  enlarged  prosperity 
with  which  it  is  to  be  crowned. 

You  may  well  be  encouraged  by  the  grounds  of  hope  for  your 
future.  The  university  has  been  founded  within  the  memory 
of  not  a  few  of  those  whom  I  address.  And  yet  it  has 
reached  a  development  which  Harvard  college  required  more 
than  two  centuries  to  attain.  You  have  behind  you  the  re- 
sources of  a  state  larger  in  area  than  some  European  king- 
doms, inhabited  by  an  intelligent  and  rapidly  increasing  popu- 
lation, who  mean  that  their  children  shall  have  the  best  facili- 
ties for  education.  They  have  taxed  themselves  for  your 
support  with  a  generosity  which  we  cite  as  a  suggestive  ex- 
ample to  our  legislatures  in  Michigan.  And  this  generous 
support  is  true  economy. 

We,  of  the  West,  are  looking  confidently  for  the  day 
when,  by  virtue  of  our  numbers,  the  responsibility  for  the  con- 
duct of  the  affairs  of  this  nation  shall  be  vested  in  us.  We 
ought  not  to  have  that  power,  and  we  ought  not  to  wish  for 
it,  unless  we  can  rear  generations  of  thoroughly -trained, 
large-minded,  large -souled  men,  who  can  wield  it  wisely.  To 
rear  such  men,  and  to  rear  women  worthy  to  be  their  com- 
panions and  helpers,  we,  in  the  West,  must  have  the  best  edu- 
cation which  the  age  can  furnish.  Let  Wisconsin  so  furnish 
this  vigorous  university  that  it  may  do  its  full  part  in  this  be- 
nign and  noble  work. 


ADDRESS  ON  BEHALF  OF  THE  REGENTS. 


BY  THE  HONORABLE  JOHN  JOHNSTON. 


MR.  PRESIDENT;  LADIES,  AND  GENTLEMEN:  After 
the  able,  interesting  and  eloquent  addresses  to  which 
we  have  listened,  and  anticipating  as  we  do  the  address  of 
the  occasion  after  I  sit  down,  I  am  sure  I  could  not  expect 
your  forgiveness  were  I  to  occupy  more  than  a  few  minutes 
of  your  time. 

I  need  not  assure  you  that  none  can  be  happier  on  this 
occasion  than  the  regents.  We  stand  between  the  people  of 
the  state  and  the  university.  We  are  expected  to  conduct  the 
business  of  the  university  in  a  business-like  way.  The  tax- 
payers expect  us  to  get  the  largest  possible  results  from  the 
means  committed  to  our  charge.  We  must  have  all  the  careful 
and  economical  habits  of  the  most  strict  man  of  business,  and 
we  must  have  all  that  warm  and  responsive  sympathy  with 
higher  education  and  progressive  methods,  which  are  to  be 
found  in  the  most  enthusiastic  scholar.  We  are  expected  by 
the  people  of  the  state  to  be  both  business  men  and  university 
men. 

You  may  well  imagine  the  concern,  if  not  actual  alarm, 
which  filled  our  minds  on  receiving  the  resignation  of  Presi- 
dent Chamberlin  last  summer.  The  more  we  considered  the 
varied  qualities  necessary  for  the  president  of  a  vast  and 
growing  institution  like  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  the  more 
did  our  solicitude  and  anxiety  increase  as  to  where  we  could 
find  a  man  for  the  place.  This  occasion,  therefore,  can  be  the 
source  of  a  higher  satisfaction  to  none  of  you  than  it  is  to  the 
regents. 

We  feel  that  the  Faculty,  the  alumni,  and  the  students  of 
the  university,  as  well  as  the  people  of  the  state,  ratify  the 
appointment  of  Dr.  Adams  as  President  of  the  University  of 

41 


42  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

Wisconsin.  I  am  sure  I  but  express  the  sentiments  of  my 
colleagues  when  I  say  that  there  is  a  great  future  before  our 
university.  We  have  now  a  revenue  equal  to  the  income  of 
§5,000,000,  besides  200  acres  of  land  and  buildings.  Ours  is 
probably  the  finest  situation  for  a  great  seat  of  learning  to  be 
found  in  this  country.  There  is  no  disguising  the  fact,  how- 
ever, that  the  students  arc  increasing  at  a  greater  ratio  than 
are  the  means  of  educating  them,  and  we  shall  have  to  appeal 
from  time  to  time  to  the  representatives  of  the  people  for  an 
increase  of  accommodations  and  revenue. 

We  have  a  Faculty  of  great  ability,  and  we  should  be  in  a 
position  to  ward  off  all  raids  upon  our  ranks  which  may  be 
attempted  by  other  institutions  of  learning.  Backed  as  it  is 
by  two  millions  of  people,  the  University  of  Wisconsin  should 
take  a  place  second  to  none.  All  honor  to  the  beneficence  of 
those  individuals  who  have  founded  a  great  university  in  a 
neighboring  city,  but  I  believe  the  great  State  of  Wisconsin 
can  not  be  excelled  in  liberality  by  any  private  beneficence, 
however  munificent. 

Our  university  stands  on  a  broader  and  far  more  liberal 
basis  than  the  one  referred  to.  It  must  in  the  long  run 
command  greater  support  from  independent  and  thinking 
minds  than  an  institution  whose  charter  requires  that  its  presi- 
dent and  a  majority  of  its  trustees  must  always  be  of  one 
particular  religious  denomination. 

I  believe  the  people  of  Wisconsin  begin  to  realize  that  the 
university  pays  handsome  dividends,  not  only  of  an  intellect- 
ual but  also  of  a  material  character.  As  was  said  here  last 
summer,  "Wisdom  and  water  run  down  hill,  the  fountains  of 
the  rivers  are  in  the  mountains,  and  the  fountains  of  knowl- 
edge are  in  colleges  and  universities."  There  is  not  a  county 
in  Wisconsin  which  is  not  richer  because  of  the  university. 
The  cheese  of  Sheboygan,  the  butter  of  Rock,  the  tobacco  of 
Dane,  the  sheep  of  Walworth,  the  horses  and  cattle  of  Racine 
and  Kenosha,  and  the  potatoes  of  Waupaca  arc  all  better 
because  of  our  university,  while  the  existence  of  those  men 


INA  UG  URA  TION  OF  PRESIDENT  A  DA  MS.  4  3 

who  dig  in  the  sunless  mines  of  Gogebic  have  been  made 
comparatively  comfortable  and  safe  through  the  discoveries  of 
science. 

The  university  wrests  from  nature  her  best  guarded  secrets 
and  yokes  her  powers  to  the  wheels  of  progress.  Classic 
mythology  tells  us  how  Hercules  cleaned  the  Augean  stables 
in  one  day,  where  3,000  oxen  had  been  kept  for  thirty  years. 
He  made  nature  do  it ;  he  turned  the  waters  of  two  rivers 
through  the  stalls.  We  have  professors  in  our  university  who 
can  do  much  more  wonderful  things  than  Hercules  ever 
dreamed  of,  and  in  our  science  hall  Vulcan  has  at  last  suc- 
ceeded in  wooing  Minerva,  and  industry  and  science  join 
hands  in  their  triumphs  over  the  forces  of  nature. 

After  all,  we  should  aim  at  intellectual,  rather  than  material 
greatness  in  our  beloved  commonwealth. 

"  What  if  men  sow  cities 

Like  shells  along  the  shore, 
And  thatch  with  towns  the  prairie  broad 

With  railways  iron'd  o'er ; 
They  are  but  sailing  foam  -  bell 

Along  thought's  coursing  stream, 
And  take  their  shape  and  sun  -  color 

From  Him  that  sends  the  dream." 

Nations  live  in  history  because  of  the  intellectual  greatness 
of  their  sons.  The  grand  old  "Bard  of  Chios'  rocky  Isle," 
whose  fame  remains  undimmed  after  3,000  years,  the  honor 
of  whose  birth  was  claimed  by  seven  cities,  and  ten  times 
seven  generations  have  done  homage  to  the  productions  of 
his  matchless  genius  ;  he  alone  has  done  more  to  make  Greece 
renowned  through  time  than  all  the  wealth  and  luxury  of 
Corinth. 

I  believe  we  can  congratulate  ourselves  that  the  people  of 
Wisconsin  are  learning  more  and  more  to  appreciate  the 
university,  and  that  we  need  look  through  no  long  vista  of 
years  to  behold  enthroned  in  this  picturesque  and  lovely  land- 
scape a  seat  of  learning  unsurpassed  in  the  nation,  whither  the 
sons  and  daughters  of  Wisconsin  shall  come  up  in   thousands 


44  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

to  participate  in  all  the  aesthetic  and  scientific  treasures  of  the 
past  and  the  present,  under  the  guidance  of  the  ablest  minds. 
I  firmly  believe  the  ceremonies  of  this  hour  will  tend  to  help 
on  this  happy  consummation. 

Dr.  Adams,  in  behalf  of  the  Regents  of  the  University  of 
Wisconsin,  I  now  invest  you  with  the  seal  of  the  University, 
and  declare  vou  duly  installed  as  its  President.  I  congratu- 
late you  on  this  ausj^icious  occasion,  but  I  still  more  con- 
gratulate the  University. 


THE  UNIVERSITY  AND  THE  STATE. 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  OF  PRESIDENT  ADAMS. 


I  SHOULD  not  fitly  comply  with  the  demand  of  this  hour 
if  I  did  not  devote  the  time  at  my  disposal  to  a  considera- 
tion of  the  relations  of  the  university  and  the  state.  In  this 
favored  domain  these  relations  are  peculiarly  intimate.  No- 
where else  are  the  university  and  the  preparatory  schools 
bound  together  in  a  firmer  or  more  helpful  alliance.  In  no 
other  state  has  the  modern  method  of  reaching  the  people  by 
the  means  known  as  University  Extension  been  so  general  or 
so  successful.  Nowhere  else  have  the  masses  of  the  people 
at  the  farmers'  institutes  received  so  much  direct  assistance 
from  the  teaching  force  at  the  university ;  and  nowhere  else 
have  the  people  in  their  turn  shown  a  higher  appreciation  and 
esteem  for  the  university  which  bears  the  name  of  the  com- 
monwealth. 

The  institution,  in  the  interests  of  which  we  are  assembled, 
is  peculiarly  fortunate  in  its  situation.  I  do  not  mean  simply 
that  it  occupies  a  site  of  unsurpassed  picturesqueness  in  a  city 
of  unusual  beauty  and  culture,  nor  do  I  refer  chiefly  to  the 
important  fact  that  it  is  favorably  situated  at  the  capital  of  an 
important  state.  What  I  have  in  mind  indicates  the  far  more 
comprehensive  advantage  of  having  its  sphere  of  activity  at 
a  capital  that  is  exceptionally  fitted  to  be  the  encouraging 
abode  of  a  great  institution  of  learning.  The  organization 
of  Wisconsin  and  of  its  institutions  was  largely  modeled  by 
people  who  had  a  profound  respect  and  love  for  education. 
Many  of  the  older  inhabitants  of  the  state  came  from  Ver- 
mont and  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut.  The  influences  of 
New  England  were  tempered  by  influences  from  New  York  and 
Northeastern  Ohio.  Men  from  those  regions  with  all  their  pre- 
possessions in  favor  of  education,  not  only  gave  form   to  the 

45 


46  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

constitution  and  government,  but  also  established  those  socie- 
ties and  institutions  that  have  become  such  a  power  and  such 
a  credit  to  the  state.  The  Historical  Society,  which  has 
brought  together  one  of  the  noblest  collections  in  the  country, 
is  conspicuous  evidence  of  the  scholarly  impulses  that  were 
dominant  in  the  earlier  days.  The  Wisconsin  Academy  of 
Sciences,  Arts,  and  Letters  gives  perpetual  proof  that  the 
interests  of  the  people  are  as  wide  as  the  realm  of  knowledge. 
These  associations  of  learning  have  had  their  abode  by  the 
side  of  the  university. 

Hither  also  came  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State,  and  one 
of  the  District  Courts  of  the  United  States.  This  capital 
thus  became  the  home  of  distinguished  judges  and  lawyers, 
as  well  as  the  abode  of  science,  art,  and  literature.  And 
thus  it  was  that  this  beautiful  city, —  on  the  one  hand  through 
the  natural  advantages  of  its  situation,  and  the  attractiveness 
of  its  institutions,  and  on  the  other  through  the  absence  of  the 
distracting  and  absorbing  turmoil  of  great  commercial  activ- 
ity,—  became  the  beneficent  home  of  those  quiet  and  scholarly 
tastes  which  are  favorable  to  academic  studies. 

Then,  too,  the  foreign  element  that  has  come  into  Wiscon- 
sin has  favored  in  every  way  the  upbuilding  of  our  educational 
institutions.  If  there  is  any  people  in  the  world  which  has 
put  a  higher  value  than  any  other  upon  education  as  a 
necessity  and  a  power,  it  is  the  people  of  that  Teutonic 
race,  from  which  so  many  of  our  people  have  come.  The 
census  shows  that  the  German  population  of  Wisconsin  is 
larger  than  that  of  any  other  state,  and  that  the  Norwegian 
population  is  second  in  number  only  to  that  of  our  neighbor 
on  the  west.  With  their  industry,  their  enterprise,  their  fru- 
gality, and  their  thrift,  the  Germans  and  Norwegians  alike  have 
retained  those  educational  predilections  which  were  so  firmly 
rooted  in  their  native  countries.  The  boundless  resources  of 
the  state,  united  with  the  invigorating  power  of  the  climate, 
make  it  certain  that  Wisconsin  will  always  be  inhabited  by  a 
hardy  and  thrifty  race  ;  and  when,  coupled  with  these,  wc  have 


IN  A  UG  URA  TION  OF  P  RES  I  DEN  T  ADA  MS.  4  7 

liberal  and  enlarged  ideas  on  educational  matters,  we  have 
conditions  peculiarly  fitted  for  successful  educational  develop- 
ment. 

But  there  is  another  element  in  the  situation  that  we  must 
not  lose  sight  of.  Our  relations  to  the  neighboring  states  and 
the  country  at  large  are  elements  of  peculiar  strength.  Within 
the  past  twenty-five  years  there  is  no  other  phenomenon  con- 
nected with  the  development  of  this  country  that  is  so  remark- 
able as  the  growth  of  the  Mississippi  valley.  The  unrivalled 
natural  resources  and  the  consequent  enormous  possibilities  of 
the  region  have  so  attracted  the  capital,  the  intelligence,  and  the 
enterprise,  not  only  of  the  Atlantic  states,  but  of  transatlantic 
nations  as  well,  that  in  comparison  with  the  seaboard  it  is  fast 
coming  to  remind  us  of  the  relative  importance  of  the  inland 
portions  of  Great  Britain,  of  Italy,  of  Germany  and  of  France. 

Nor  is  the  most  remarkable  feature  of  this  prosperity  its 
material  growth  alone.  Go  where  we  may,  we  discover  a  deter- 
mination at  the  earliest  possible  moment  to  be  in  possession  of 
the  best  things  that  civilization  offers.  The  most  luxurious  Pull- 
man cars  go  to  the  West  quite  as  much  as  to  the  East.  The 
electrical  engineer  treads  upon  the  heels  of  the  frontiersman. 
The  most  conspicuous  building  in  the  typical  city  of  the 
Northwest  is  the  school-house.  An  opening  is  made  in  the 
forest,  a  school-house  is  erected,  a  city  charter  is  procured,  a 
literary  club  is  formed,  and .  then  Shakespeare  and  Browning 
are  duly  installed.  This  is  the  normal  way  in  which  a  frontier 
society  finds  relief  from  its  earliest  privations.  It  is  but 
natural,  therefore,  that  the  very  best  things  often  find  their 
way   even   more  rapidly   into   the  West   than  into  the   East. 

This  rapidity  of  advancement  shows  itself  in  education  as 
well  as  in  material  development.  It  is  a  common  observation 
at  the  meeting  of  the  National  Teachers  Association,  that  the 
soil  of  the  prairies  seems  to  be  peculiarly  hospitable  to  the 
roots  of  new  educational  ideas.  The  kindergarten,  the  manual 
training  school,  the  seminary  and  laboratory  methods  of 
advanced  instruction  in  our  universities,  the  generous  provis- 


48  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

ions  of  legislatures  and  of  private  benevolence  for  education, 
all  these  bespeak  an  alertness  of  enterprise  in  securing  the  best 
methods  for  the  development  of  mind  as  well  as  for  the 
extension  of  material  resources.  Surely  these  are  fortunate 
surroundings. 

But  a  noble  situation  is  nothing  more  than  a  noble  oppor- 
tunity. Universities  are  not  born,  they  are  made.  The  Uni- 
versity of  Wisconsin  is  the  creation  and  the  possession  of  the 
people.  If  it  is  to  do  in  an  adequate  way  what  a  university 
ought  to  do  for  a  people  in  so  large  a  place,  it  will  be  because 
the  people  nourish  it  with  the  food  without  which  a  univer- 
sity can  not  grow  and  do  its  work.  The  Northwest  will  not 
deserve  to  exert  the  influence  that  seems  to  await  its  future, 
unless  it  is  fully  alive  to  the  moral  and  intellectual  obligations 
that  rest  upon  it. 

We  are  living  in  a  period  of  educational  transition.  A 
few  of  the  larger  institutions  have  now  grown  to  be 
universities.  There  is  coming  for  the  first  time  in  this 
country  to  be  a  distinct  difference  between  the  college  and  the 
university.  Within  the  past  three  years  this  difference  has 
been  emphasized  and  made  more  conspicuous  by  the  great 
endowments  in  California  and  Chicago.  Every  large  institu- 
tion, especially  every  state  institution,  finds  itself  obliged  to 
ask  itself  whether  it  will  take  rank  among  the  universities  or 
whether  it  will  be  content  to  do  the  work  of  the  smaller 
institutions. 

There  are  jjrevalent  two  ideas  in  regard  to  higher  educa- 
tion. The  one  is  that  private  endowment  may  safely  be  left 
to  care  for  the  interests  of  advanced  education  of  every  kind ; 
the  other  is  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  state  to  foster  and  sup- 
port education  in  all  its  grades,  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest 
Wisconsin,  like  her  sister  states  in  the  Northwest,  is  committed 
to  the  latter  view ;  and  it  has  seemed  to  me  on  coming  to  the 
presidency  of  this  university  that  I  might  appro|)riatcly  dis- 
cuss the  reasons  why  this  view  is  to  be  upheld  and  maintained. 
In  a  business  crisis  prudence  requires  a  careful  examination  of 


IN  A  UGURA  TION  OF  PRESIDENT  ADAMS.  49 

the  securities  and  title  deeds.  Even  when  there  is  no  more 
than  a  change  of  officers  in  the  corporation,  such  an  examina- 
tion may  renew  familiarity  and  strengthen   confidence. 

If  it  be  true,  as  has  so  often  been  said,  that  tendencies  are 
stronger  than  men,  the  remark  is  but  another  way  of  saying 
that  society  is  sometimes  moved  and  influenced  by  an  all- 
controlling  exterior  force.  We  recognize  certain  general  cur- 
rents that  sweep  us  along,  regardless  of  our  own  volition.  The 
breaking  down  of  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  right  of  kings  ;  the 
belief  in  the  inherent  rights  of  the  individual  man,  ever  broad- 
ening out  into  the  masses  of  humanity;  the  ever -increasing 
tendency  toward  universal  suffrage  and  universal  education ; 
these  forces,  for  better  or  for  worse,  are  as  irresistible  as  the 
movement  of  the  earth  about  its  axis.  What  we  call  the 
spirit  of  the  age,  what  the  Germans  call  the  Zeitgeist,  is  a  force 
which 

"  Wie  das  Gestirn,  ohne  Hast,  aber  ohne  Kasf 

we  can  neither  stay  nor  control. 

This  controlling  spirit  shows  itself  in  the  realm  of  higher 
education  as  well  as  in  the  domain  of  nature  and  politics.  Let 
us  look  for  a  moment  at  the  history  of  this  movement.  There 
was  a  time  when  education  was  exclusively  under  the  direction 
of  the  church.  During  the  middle  ages,  that  is  to  say,  so  long 
as  the  church  was  a  unit,  it  controlled  the  methods  of  educa- 
tion even  more  completely  than  it  controlled  the  methods  of 
government ;  but  when  the  church  came  to  be  divided,  when  it 
came  no  longer  to  embrace  within  its  folds  all  the  members  of 
society,  the  government  was  obliged  either  to  assume  respon- 
sibility in  matters  of  education,  or  to  permit  large  numbers  of 
the  people  to  remain  without  any  of  the  advantages  of  educa- 
tion. And  so  it  was  found  everywhere  that  just  in  proportion 
as  the  church  came  to  be  divided,  and  so  lost  control  of  the 
government,  education  came  to  be  cared  for  by  the  state. 

We  may  go  a  step  further  than  this,  and  we  shall  find  that 
in  those  nations  which,  during  the  past  century,  have  been 
most  conspicuous  for  their  enlightenment  and  progress,  the 


50  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN, 

tendency  has  most  conspicuously  been  in  the  same  direction. 
Illustrations  are  everywhere  at  hand.  For  example,  if  we 
turn  to  the  history  of  that  individual  nation  of  the  old  world 
which,  during  this  century,  has  made  the  most  remarkable 
progress  in  the  arts  and  sciences  and  in  practical  power,  we 
shall  see  that  the  history  of  that  progress  has  been  little  more 
than  the  history  of  education.  Glance  for  a  moment  at 
the  progress  of  that  nation.  The  paternalism  of  Frederick 
the  Great  left  the  people  peculiarly  dependent  upon  the 
government.  They  acquired  the  habit  of  looking  to  political 
authority  for  everything.  They  lost  their  self-reliance.  The 
weakness  and  folly  of  Frederick  William  II.  gave  emphasis  to 
this  tendency  by  robbing  them  of  their  respect  for  their 
rulers  and  their  country. 

"Those  were  the  days  when 
An  Emperor  trampled  where  an  Emperor  knelt ; 
Kingdoms  were  shrunk  to  provinces,  and  chains 
Clanked  over  sceptered  cities." 

The  disasters  of  the  Napoleonic  wars  were  a  natural  result ; 
but  the  storm  and  stress  of  the  time  cleared  the  atmosjjhere  of 
many  delusions.  It  aroused  the  people  of  Germany  to  their 
own  consciousness.  It  was  one  of  those  events  when  the 
crash  of  defeat  and  the  threat  of  annihilation  seemed  to  be  the 
only  agency  capable  of  arousing  the  best  energies  and  the 
most  careful  discrimination.  The  movement  was  not  a  revival 
inspired  by  monarchs,  or  the  government ;  it  was  a  revival  that 
was  forced  upon  the  government  by  the  best  representatives  of 
the  people.  A  new  spirit  took  possession  of  the  atmosphere, 
and  it  found  voice  in  one  of  the  great  philosophers  of  the  time. 
Fichte's  '' Rede?i  an  die  Deutschen"  diddr esses  to  the  Germans, 
so  far  as  I  know,  were  unique  in  the  history  of  literature.  They 
were  a  solemn  and  deliberate  and  elaborate  attcmjjt  to  show 
the  German  people  what  they  should  dt)  in  order  to  recover 
their  lost  nationality  and  their  greatness.  And  the  key  note 
was  in  this  sentence : 

"I    hope  —  perhaps    I    deceive    myself  —  but    it    is    only 


INAUGURATION  OF  PRESIDENI  ADAMS.  5  I 

because  of  this  hope  that  I  care  to  live  —  I  hope  to  convince 
some  Germans  that  nothing  but  education  can  rescue  us  from 
all  the  miseries  that  overwhelm  us." 

After  this  solemn  declaration  he  went  on  to  say  that,  while 
everything  else  had  been  taken  from  them,  the  privileges  of 
education  alone  had  been  left ;  and  that  in  this  privilege  there 
were  greater  possibilities  for  Germany  than  they  had  ever  yet 
dreamed  of. 

It  was  on  the  basis  of  instruction  like  this  that  the  Ger- 
mans went  to  work.  They  reorganized  schools  from  top  to 
bottom.  Pestalozzi  was  brought  from  republican  Switzerland 
to  found  that  system  of  normal  schools  which  even  up  to  the 
present  day  has  never  again  been  equaled.  Henceforth  every 
teacher  was  to  be  trained  for  his  profession  with  a  thorough- 
ness which  perhaps  can  best  be  compared  with  the  thorough- 
ness with  which  our  military  ofificers  are  trained  at  West  Point. 
Every  primary  school  in  the  kingdom  was  to  be  taught  by 
one  who  had  received  this  professional  training.  The  sec- 
ondary schools  were  to  be  taught  exclusively  by  those  who 
had  received  a  university  training  or  had  passed  an  equivalent 
examination  by  the  state.  Financial  provision  for  these  new 
requirements  were  made  on  the  most  liberal  scale.  Royal 
palaces  at  Berlin  and  Bonn  were  consecrated  to  this  new  en- 
thusiasm and  this  new  learning.  The  story  has  too  often  been 
told  to  need  any  elaboration,  that  in  scarcely  more  than  a  single 
year  the  University  of  Berlin  brought  together  the  most  extra- 
ordinary array  of  scholars  the  world  had  ever  seen.  German 
professors  soon  became  the  schoolmasters  of  the  world.  Stu- 
dents of  history  flocked  to  Niebuhr  and  Ranke  and  Mommsen  ; 
students  of  philosophy  deemed  their  education  incomplete 
if  they  had  not  heard  Fichte,  Schelling,  Schleiermacher,  or 
Trendelenburg.  Savigny  revealed  the  continuity  of  Roman 
law ;  Bunsen  and  Kirchoff  invented  the  marvelous  instrument 
with  which,  by  the  polarization  of  light,  we  can  even  deter- 
mine the  chemical  constituents  of  the  fixed  stars ;  Virchow 
revolutionized   the  knowledge  of  physiology,  and    Helmholz, 


52  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

by  revealing  the  laws  of  sound,  made  possible  the  invention 
of  the  telephone  and  the  phonograph. 

This  spirit  permeated  all  their  institutions.  The  most 
conspicuous,  if  not  the  most  salutary,  example  was  the  revolu- 
tion of  the  army.  The  fruit  gathered  by  Moltke  was  grown 
from  the  tree  planted  by  Bliicher  and  Scharnhorst.  What  all 
this  meant  was  taught  by  the  war  of  1870.  The  crash,  the 
cUbdcle  of  France,  scarcely  less  complete  and  humiliating  than 
had  been  that  of  Germany  two  generations  before,  set  thought- 
ful men  everywhere  to  meditating  upon  the  laws  of  cause  and 
effect.  Every  thinking  man  saw  that  it  was  the  normal  school 
and  the  gymnasium  and  the  university  and  the  principles  they 
had  inculcated  that  had  triumphed  at  Metz,  at  Gravclotte,  at 
Sedan,  and  at  Versailles. 

Nor  was  this  enthusiasm  temporary.  The  purpose  of 
Fichte  had  taken  permanent  possession  of  all  German  thought 
and  method;  and  so  when  the  Franco -German  war  was  at  an 
end  it  was  but  natural  that  they  should  remember  the  reward 
the  nation  had  received  for  that  spirit  which  had  expressed 
itself  in  the  founding  of  the  universities  at  Berlin  and  Bonn. 
It  was  in  obedience  to  this  spirit  that  a  large  part  of  the 
indemnity  fund  was  devoted  to  the  establishment  of  other 
noble  institutions  of  learning.  At  Charlottenburg  and  Stras- 
burg  arose  majestic  tokens  of  the  nation's  gratitude,  in  the 
form  of  consummate  expressions  of  scholastic  architecture  and 
endowment.  In  ten  years  the  new  university  of  Strasburg, 
housed  in  a  succession  of  educational  palaces  erected  for  the 
purpose,  had  crowned  its  preparations  for  beginning  its  work, 
by  bringing  together  a  library  of  more  than  300,000  volumes. 

The  same  spirit  permeated  other  institutions.  In  Ger- 
many's agricultural  schools,  her  schools  of  medicine  and 
technology,  the  government  of  her  cities,  the  administration 
of  her  railroads  and  telegraph  lines,  the  care  of  human  life  — 
in  whatever  goes  to  make  up  the  characteristics  of  efficient 
and  economical  education  and  administration,  progress  has 
been  as  extraordinary  as  it  has  been  in  the  affairs  of  arms. 


IN  A  UG  URA  TION  OF  PRESIDENT  ADAMS.  5  3 

If  we  turn  from  monarchical  Germany  to  republican  France 
we  shall  see  that  a  kindred  spirit  has  now  taken  possession  of 
the  people.  During  some  years  after  1815  the  extraordinary 
successes  of  the  French  resulted  in  a  spirit  of  self-satisfaction 
that  was  as  fatal  to  all  progress  as  was  that  of  Germany  after 
Frederick  the  Great.  For  a  second  time  in  this  century  there 
was  an  illustration  of  the  poet's  words  : 

"  Nations  melt 
From  power's  high  pinnacle,  when  they  have  felt 
The  sunshine  for  a  while,  and  downward  go 
Like  lauwine  loosened  from  the  mountain's  belt." 

While,  therefore,  after  the  Napoleonic  period,  the  Germans 
were  making  prodigious  advances,  the  French  were  relying 
upon  the  renown  of  past  achievements.  But  the  disasters 
of  1870  and  1 87 1  accomplished  for  them  what  had  been  done 
for  Germany  by  the  disasters  of  Jena  and  Tilsit.  During  the 
last  twenty  years  their  system  of  education  has  been  funda- 
mentally remodeled.  A  commission  visited  Germany  for  the 
purpose  of  inspecting  the  German  system.  The  result  has 
been  that  in  all  grades  of  education,  from  the  primary  schools 
to  the  schools  of  technology  and  the  university,  the  spirit  of 
improvement  is  everywhere  awake.  The  representatives  of 
the  French  people  have  appropriated  money  with  almost  im- 
measurable liberality  for  every  grade  of  institution.  The  con- 
sequence is  that,  even  in  those  fields  that  are  thought  to  be 
peculiarly  German,  the  French  schools  are  now  taking  a  fore- 
most rank.  For  the  first  time  in  this  century,  word  is  now 
coming  back  from  our  American  students  in  Europe  that  they 
are  finding  as  thorough  and  as  comprehensive  instruction  in 
Paris  as  in  Berlin. 

I  might  call  attention  in  detail  to  the  extraordinary  intel- 
lectual activity  that  has  recently  been  characteristic  of  Italy  ; 
how  the  government,  even  though  under  conditions  of  the 
greatest  financial  stress,  has  given  fruitful  encouragement  to 
higher  learning.  Libraries  have  been  founded  ;  library  build- 
ings of  vast  proportions  have   been  erected ;    museums  and 


54  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

laboratories  have  been  established ;  and  liberal  endowments 
have  been  provided.  It  might  be  interesting  to  trace  the  new 
activities  that  are  shown  in  the  old  universities  of  Holland  and 
Belgium ;  how  at  Liege,  at  Louvain,  and  at  Levden,  the 
modern  spirit  has  usurped  the  place  of  the  old,  and  how 
generous  studies  in  science,  in  literature,  in  history,  and  in  the 
learned  professions,  have  found  a  congenial  and  encouraging 
abode.  Most  important  and  interesting  of  all,  it  would  be 
profitable,  if  there  were  time,  to  dwell  at  some  length  upon 
the  extraordinary  intellectual  activity  of  the  little  republic  of 
Switzerland.  It  would  be  easy  to  show  how  within  the  past 
ten  years  those  frugal  sons  of  the  mountains,  inspired  by  a 
consciousness  of  what  learning  will  do  for  a  people,  have 
made  most  astonishing  advances  in  the  interests  of  education. 
Switzerland  in  superficial  area  has  less  than  16,000  square 
miles ;  scarcely  more  than  a  quarter  of  the  area  of  Wisconsin, 
and  nothing  but  the  remarkable  energy  and  frugality  of  the 
people  is  able  to  extort  a  scanty  livelihood  from  the  rocks 
and  mountain  sides  on  which  they  live.  But  their  intellectual 
courage  is  equal  to  their  physical  hardihood.  For  a  single 
institution,  the  Polytechnicum  at  Zurich,  less  than  ten  years 
ago,  this  little  people  contributed  two  million  five  hundred 
thousand  francs  (§500,000)  for  the  erection  of  a  chemical 
laboratory  ;  and  five  years  later,  not  less  than  three  million 
five  hundred  thousand  francs  (or  $750,000)  for  the  erection 
and  equipment  of  a  laboratory  of  physics.  A  million  and  a 
quarter  of  dollars  voted  by  the  Swiss  parliament  for  two 
buildings  in  less  than  ten  years!  Is  it  too  great  a  price  for 
the  reward  she  receives  ?  Thither  in  winter  as  in  summer 
scholars  are  now  drawn  by  the  glories  of  achievement  as  well 
as  by  the  glories  of  nature.  Of  this  little  republic  it  niav  now 
be  said  as  was  said  of  the  republic  of  Venice  : 

"In  purple  is  she  robed,  and  of  her  feast 
Monarchs  partake,  and  deem  their  dif^nity  increased." 

But  I  must  not  dwell  in  detail  upon  these  interesting  charac- 
teristics.     It  is  enough   to  show  with  what   spirit  and   purpose 


INAUGURATION  OF  PRESIDENl  ADAMS.  55 

the  people  of  the  old  world,  in  monarchies  and  republics 
alike,  are  devoting  their  moneys  to  the  purposes  of  higher 
education.  It  is  fully  time  that  I  turn  to  our  own  side  of  the 
Atlantic. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  recount  the  events  that  led  to  the 
establishment  of  colleges  and  universities  in  the  American 
colonies.  The  story  has  often  been  told  how  within  colonial 
and  provincial  days  the  legislature  of  Massachusetts  gave 
more  than  a  hundred  different  grants  for  the  founding  and  the 
support  of  Harvard  College.  It  is  a  part  of  history  that  Yale, 
and  William  and  Mary,  and  Dartmouth,  and  the  other  earlier 
colleges  of  the  country  were  founded  and  supported  by  the 
provident  care  of  the  state.  Passing  over  the  colonial  period, 
let  us  notice  a  little  more  particularly  the  drift  of  public 
opinion  on  this  subject  during  the  constitutional  period. 

First  of  all,  it  may  be  remembered  that  the  establishment 
of  a  national  university  was  a  favorite  project  of  Washington, 
who  advocated  such  an  institution  often  during  his  life,  and 
made  generous  provisions  for  carrying  out  such  a  project  in 
his  will.  Perhaps  the  most  comprehensive  and  liberal  project 
of  an  educational  endeavor  ever  devised  in  this  country,  was 
the  one  outlined  by  Jefferson  for  the  University  of  Virginia. 
Unfortunately,  Jefferson's  ideas  were  adopted  only  in  part; 
but  the  institution  which  he  founded  and  moulded,  and  to 
which  during  the  later  years  of  his  life  he  gave  such  devoted 
attention,  became  the  model  of  all  that  is  best  for  higher 
education  in  the  southern  states. 

If  we  turn  from  the  desires  and  projects  of  individual  men 
to  the  provisions  made  by  the  government,  we  shall  find  that 
the  same  spirit  prevailed.  As  we  all  know,  one  of  the  last 
acts  of  the  old  Confederate  Congress  was  the  adoption  of  that 
new  Magna  Charta  which,  for  all  time,  was  to  be  the  funda- 
mental law  of  the  Northwest.  The  ordinance  of  1787 
abounded  in  provisions  of  so  great  importance  that  Daniel 
Webster,  in  his  first  speech  on  Foote's  resolution,  said  he 
doubted   "whether  any   single   law,  ancient   or   modern,   had 


56  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

produced  effects  of  more  distinct,  marked  and  lasting  a  char- 
acter." Besides  providing  that  slavery  and  involuntary  servi- 
tude, save  as  punishment  for  crime,  shall  never  exist  in  any 
state  formed  out  of  the  new  territory,  and  that  the  waters  lead- 
ing into  the  Mississippi  shall  always  be  public  highways,  it 
adopteda  third  provision  that  becamea  perpetual  and  ever  pres- 
ent obligation  upon  all  the  states  of  the  Northwest.  It  was  in 
the  declaration,  that  "  Religion,  morality,  and  knowledge  being 
necessary  to  good  government  and  the  happiness  of  mankind, 
schools  and  the  means  of  education  shall  forever  be  encour- 
aged." This  provision,  "  forever  to  remain  unaltered,  except 
by  general  consent,"  as  Daniel  Webster  said  of  it,  "  went 
deeper  than  any  local  law,  deeper  than  all  local  constitutions ; 
and  we  shall  never  cease  to  see  its  consequences  while  the 
Ohio  shall  flow." 

It  was  in  obedience  to  the  spirit  of  this  charter  that  when 
the  Northwest  territory  came  to  be  divided  into  states,  the 
government  gave  to  each  of  them  at  least  one  section  of  land 
in  every  township  for  common  schools,  and  not  less  than  two 
townships  in  every  state  for  the  founding  of  a  university. 
These  grants  were  in  some  cases  not  indeed  the  beginning  of 
higher  education,  but  they  showed  at  least  a  determination  to 
afford  encouragement  and  support.  In  some  of  the  states 
these  lands  were  fortunately  located,  and  the  proceeds  from 
their  sale  afforded  a  perpetual  endowment.  In  others  the  law- 
makers forgot  the  injunction  of  the  ordinance,  that  the  "  means 
of  education"  should  be  "encouraged":  that  is  to  say,  the 
lands  granted  by  the  government  for  education,  instead  of 
being  "encouraged,"  were  squandered  in  the  interests  of  pri- 
vate cupidity.  In  all  such  cases  the  support  of  the  univer- 
sities had  been  thrown  directly  upon  the  people  of  the  state. 

It  was  in  the  same  spirit  that  the  next  great  federal  pro- 
vision for  education  was  made  by  what  is  known  as  the  Mor- 
rill act  of  1862.  At  a  time  when  the  life  of  the  nation  was 
in  peril,  when  it  even  seemed  doubtful  whether  we  should 
continue   to  be  one   nation,  a  liberal    grant   was   made  by  con- 


IN  A  UG  URA  TION  OF  PRESIDEN  T  ADAMS.  5  ^ 

r 
gress  to  provide  for  "  the  endowment,  support,  and  mainte- 
nance of  at  least  one  college  where  the  leading  object  should 
be,  without  excluding  other  scientific  and  classical  studies, 
and  including  military  tactics,  to  teach  such  branches  of  learn- 
ing as  are  related  to  agriculture  and  the  mechanic  arts,  in  such 
manner  as  the  legislature  of  the  states  may  respectively  pre- 
scribe, in  order  to  promote  the  liberal  and  practical  education 
of  the  industrial  classes  in  the  several  pursuits  and  professions 
of  life." 

In  the  same  spirit  was  what  is  known  as  the  Hatch  act  of 
1887.  The  agricultural  interests  of  the  country  had  become 
aware  that  at  Rothamstead,  in  England,  and  in  many  places 
on  the  European  continent,  agricultural  experiment  stations 
had  been  established  for  the  investigation  of  the  laws  and 
principles  that  govern  the  successful  and  profitable  tillage 
of  the  soil.  Our  government  was  prompt  to  imitate  their 
example,  and  more  than  forty  agricultural  stations  have  been 
founded  and  equipped  as  the  beneficent  result  of  this  generous 
federal  act.  Then  came  the  supplementary  Morrill  act  of 
1890,  providing  for  the  ultimate  grant  of  ^25,000  a  year, 
equivalent  to  a  permanent  endowment  of  half  a  million  dol- 
lars, to  each  of  the  institutions  founded  by  the  Morrill  act  of 
1862,  for  the  more  complete  equipment  and  endowment  of  the 
colleges  of  agriculture  and  mechanic  arts. 

It  is  doubtless  true  that  in  some  of  the  older  states  the 
time  has  already  come,  which  was  once  eloquently  fore- 
told by  Edward  Everett  when  he  said :  "  The  mother  state, 
having  nourished  her  daughters,  the  higher  institutions  of 
learning,  through  a  struggling  and  precarious  childhood, 
can  safely  turn  them  over,  in  their  maturity,  to  the  care  of 
their  own  children."  But  during  the  whole  of  the  colonial 
period  the  colonists  recognized  the  support  of  the  colleges  as 
one  of  the  first  duties  of  the  state.  The  spirit,  naturally 
showing  itself  in  the  federal  government,  took  the  form  of  the 
appropriations  to  which  I  have  referred ;  and  the  fostering 
care  of  the  universities  of  the  Northwest,  has  been  the  fruit  of 


58  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

•\ 
the  same  spirit.     In  this  way  it  was,  that  even  while  the  people 

were  making  the  very  first  advances  from  the  privations  of 
frontier  life,  the  foundations  were  laid  for  institutions  where 
generous  learning  should  be  taught.  The  Universities  of  Michi- 
gan, Wisconsin,  and  Minnesota,  of  Iowa  and  Nebraska,  of 
Kansas  and  California,  Indiana,  Illinois  and  Missouri,  have  all 
had  a  similar  history ;  and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  not 
one  of  these  institutions,  all  of  which  are  the  glory,  if  not  the 
pride,  of  their  respective  states,  could  have  had  any  pros- 
perity, if  indeed  they  could  have  existed  at  all,  but  for  the 
initiative  bounty  of  the  federal  government  and  the  subsequent 
bounty  of  the  state.  The  people  of  Wisconsin  may  therefore 
congratulate  themselves  that  in  supporting  the  State  University 
they  have  been  acting  in  accordance  with  the  best  thought  of 
the  nation  as  well  as  the  most  enlightened  spirit  of  the  age. 

Accompanying  this  trend  of  public  opinion,  there  has  been 
another  tendency  that  is  not  less  interesting  and  important. 
I  refer  to  the  multiplying  of  university  studies.  A  hundred 
years  ago  the  college  was  an  institution  of  limited  significance. 
It  educated  for  the  learned  professions  alone  ;  and  the  learned 
professions  were  medicine,  theology,  and  the  law.  What  has 
aptly  been  called  the  Age  of  Invention,  was  far  more  com- 
prehensive in  its  influence  than  has  sometimes  been  supposed. 
In  our  national  life  it  is  a  fact  of  striking  significance  that  this 
age  has  been  coeval  with  the  natural  development  of  our 
national  resources.  The  application  of  steam  to  motive  power 
occurred  during  the  same  generation  as  the  adoption  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States.  To  say,  as  has  sometimes 
been  said,  that  the  exigencies  of  our  national  enlargement  and 
development  have  given  us  no  time  or  op])ortunity  for  the 
higher  culture,  is  as  unjust  as  it  is  offensive  ;  but  it  must  never- 
theless be  recognized  as  true,  that  a  very  large  part  of  our 
national  energies  have  been  devoted  to  what  has  been 
nothing  less  than  the  |)rocess  of  converting  a  vast  region  from 
a  condition  of  primitive  savagery  to  a  condition  of  civilization. 
All  this  has   been  primarily  and   chiefly  a  process  of  personal, 


IN  A  UG  URA  TION  OF  PRESIDENT  A  DA  MS.  5  9 

municipal,  and  national  development.  It  has  called  for  new 
applications  of  the  arts  and  sciences.  It  has  demanded  not 
simply  law,  medicine,  and  theology,  but  all  those  professions 
and  occupations  that  deal  more  directly  with  the  natural  forces 
of  nature.  The  construction  of  mills,  the  building  of  bridges, 
the  laying  out  of  railroads,  the  excavation  of  canals,  the 
devopment  of  mines,  the  transportation  of  products,  and  above 
all,  the  organization  of  governments  adapted  to  these  new 
and  interesting  and  intricate  conditions,  demanded  a  kind  of 
education  for  which  the  institutions  of  learning  had  as  yet 
made  no  adequate  provision. 

But  the  demand  was  met  as  soon  as  it  was  recognized.  It 
was  but  natural,  then,  that  the  new  education  should  have  its 
first  adequate  development  in  the  west.  I  shall  not  enter  into 
the  controverted  questions  as  to  when  the  new  educational 
movement  had  its  birth  ;  but  I  look  in  vain  for  any  adequate 
expression  of  it,  before  the  reorganization  of  the  University  of 
Michigan  in  1852.  At  that  time  the  ground  was  boldly  taken, 
that  in  the  education  demanded  by  the  age,  the  arts  and  sci- 
ences, both  natural  and  applied,  are  entitled  to  the  same  con- 
sideration as  those  studies  that  are  supposed  to  be  peculiarly 
adapted  to  the  wants  of  the  learned  professions.  On  this 
theory  the  courses  of  instruction  were  remodelled ;  and  the 
general  educational  thought,  then  adopted,  has  not  only  served 
as  the  model  of  all  the  other  State  Universities  of  the  North- 
west, but  has  influenced  powerfully,  even  if  it  has  not  defi- 
nitely shaped  the  newer  institutions  in  all  parts  of  the  country. 
It  would  scarcely  be  too  much  to  say  that  the  same  thought 
has  revolutionized  the  older  seats  of  learning  in  the  East. 

With  the  numerous  advantages  that  have  come  from  the 
enlargement  of  the  scope  of  instruction,  there  has  come  one 
disadvantage  or  embarassment  that  must  not  be  overlooked. 
The  natural  equipment  necessary  for  the  old  college  was  small 
and  inexpensive.  A  few  rooms,  a  few  books,  a  small  apparatus, 
and  a  small  teaching  corps — these  were  all  that  even  up  to  a 
generation  ago  were  deemed  necessary  by  the  oldest  and  the 


60  UNIVERSITY  OF  W I  SCON  SIX. 

richest  of  our  institutions.  But  what  a  change  has  been  made 
necessary  by  the  new  conditions.  The  number  of  subjects  to 
be  taught  has  been  increased  by  ten  fold.  The  president  of 
Harvard  University  recently  said  that  it  would  require  a  stu- 
dent forty  years  to  complete  the  courses  offered  by  that  insti- 
tution. 

But  even  this  statement,  impressive  as  it  is,  does  not  accu- 
rately represent  the  modern  situation.  The  true  condition  of 
the  modern  university  can  only  be  understood  when  it  is  re- 
membered that  the  courses  of  instruction  which  have  recently 
for  the  first  time  been  called  for,  demand  far  more  than 
their  proportion  of  outlay  for  material  equipment.  Modern 
scholarship,  unlike  that  of  the  atmosphere  in  which  Newman 
published  his  "Idea  of  a  University,"  is  a  scholarship  of  in- 
vestigation, and  investigation  requires  vast  resources  in  the 
way  of  apparatus,  libraries,  laboratories,  and  museums.  In  the 
old  days  all  the  apparatus  that  was  needed  for  the  teaching  of 
mathematics  was  a  book,  a  blackboard,  and  a  piece  of  chalk. 
For  Latin  and  Greek  all  that  was  called  for  was  a  cheap  book 
and  a  hard  bench.  And  the  Latin,  the  Greek,  and  the  mathe- 
matics were  nearly  all.  But  when  the  university  came  to  the 
age  of  research, what  vast  resources  were  at  once  required  ;  re- 
sources as  indispensable  to  modern  education  as  are  the  reaper 
and  the  threshing  machine  to  modern  agriculture. 

Is  it  any  wonder,  then,  that  modern  education  is  expensive  ? 
The  current  expenditures  of  Harvard  University  during  the 
past  year  can  hardly  have  fallen  short  of  a  million  dollars. 
The  expenditures  of  half  a  dozen  of  the  other  universities 
amounted  to  considerably  more  than  half  a  million  each.  The 
state  universities  are  not  less  comprehensive  in  their  scope  or 
less  generous  in  their  jjurjjose,  and  if  the  jjcople  of  the  north- 
western states  would  do  their  full  part  in  the  opportunities 
they  give  to  their  sons  and  daughters,  they  must  not  fail  to 
supply  all  the  requisite  conditions  of  success. 

Another  consideration  that  must  be  observed,  though  it  is 
common -place,  is   the   fact   that    no   higher   education  can  be 


IN  A  UGURA  TION  OF  PRESIDENT  ADAMS.  6 1 

self-sustaining.  In  the  nature  of  things  it  costs  more  to  edu- 
cate the  children  than  the  children  or  the  parents  of  children 
can  afford  to  pay.  This  is  a  recognized  condition  of  civiliza- 
tion everywhere,  and  one  that  is  accepted  by  all  enlightened 
peoples.  It  is  only  those  who  have  no  education,  that  is  to 
say,  the  barbarous,  that  insist  that  the  cost  of  education  shall 
be  left  solely  to  those  who  avail  themselves  of  it.  And  this 
is  even  truer  in  the  range  of  higher  education  than  in  the 
range  of  the  lower.  The  cost  of  material  equipment  necessarily 
increases  with  the  advancement  of  studies.  Instruction  for 
advanced  students  grows  more  and  more  costly.  Libraries  and 
museums  and  laboratories  are  of  the  first  necessity.  If  the 
treasury  books  of  the  most  efficient  colleges  and  universities 
are  scanned,  it  will  be  found  that,  apart  from  all  permanent 
improvement,  the  cost  of  a  liberal  education,  to  the  institution 
that  gives  it,  is  not  much,  if  at  all,  less  than  three  hundred 
dollars  a  year  for  every  student.  In  many  institutions  it  is 
more.  In  other  words,  exclusive  of  permanent  improvements, 
a  tuition  fee  of  three  hundred  dollars  a  year  would  be  needed, 
if  the  costs  were  to  be  defrayed  by  the  students  alone.  Even 
in  an  old  country  such  a  rate  would  leave  education  to  be  en- 
joyed by  the  rich  alone ;  in  a  new  country  it  would  be  pro- 
hibitory. 

Wisconsin  has  generously  chosen  to  make  the  education 
offered  by  the  university  free  to  rich  and  poor  alike.  Aside 
from  the  College  of  Law,  which  is  strictly  a  professional 
school,  only  a  small  fee,  designed  to  cover  in  part  the  inci- 
dental expenses  of  the  university,  is  exacted.  This  wise  pro- 
vision, established  as  it  is  in  accordance  with  legislative  require- 
ments, imposes  a  great  obligation  upon  the  legislature  itself. 

Every  addition  to  the  number  of  our  students  is  an  addi- 
tional call  for  larger  legislative  provision.  This  year  the  number 
of  students  is  more  than  twenty  per  cent,  greater  than  it  was  two 
years  ago.  Meanwhile  our  working  income,  while  slightly  in- 
creased, haslfallen  far  behind  our  real  necessities.  This  state- 
ment may   be  a  matter  of   surprise  to  those  who  recall    the 


62  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

generous  provisions  of  the  legislature  two  years  ago ;  but  that 
surprise  will  vanish  when  it  is  remembered  that  the  legislation 
referred  towas  for  the  erection  of  buildings.  The  fruit  of  that 
legislation  will  be  three  noble  structures  in  every  way  creditable 
to  the  university  and  the  state.  The  Dairy  Building,  the  Armory, 
and  the  Law  Building  were  called  for  by  absolute  necessity. 
But  the  gift  of  a  building  without  an  endowment  for  its  care 
often  impoverishes  an  institution.  The  care  of  the  three 
buildings  provided  for  by  the  act  of  1891,  including  janitors, 
fuel,  lights,  insurance,  repairs,  and  administration  cannot  be 
less  than  ten  thousand  dollars  a  year.  To  meet  such  a  demand 
on  the  university  treasury,  no  provision  whatever  has  been 
made. 

Other  buildings  are  loudly  called  for.  The  large  acces- 
sions to  the  College  of  Engineering  demand  an  immediate 
increase  of  accommodations  in  the  shops,  class-rooms,  and 
laboratories.  The  chemical  laboratory  can  hardly  satisfy  the 
necessities  of  the  university  another  year.  Ladies'  Hall, 
crowded  to  its  utmost  capacity,  greatly  needs  an  addition  for 
a  dining-room,  a  gymnasium,  and  enlarged  accommodations 
for  the  department  of  music.  It  must  be  extended,  if  it  is  to 
be  continued. 

But  even  these  are  not  the  largest  of  the  material  needs  of 
the  university.  The  most  pressing  necessity  is  a  library  ade- 
quate to  immediate  wants.  A  college  may  be  eminently  suc- 
cessful with  a  comparatively  small  library.  But  to  a  university 
a  large  and  constantly  increasing  collection  of  books  is  as 
necessary  as  fuel  to  a  fire.  This  necessity  is  founded  in  the 
very  nature  of  things.  A  university  is  an  organization  for  the 
discovery  and  the  promulgation  of  truth.  There  is  not  a 
single  domain  in  all  the  vast  realm  of  knowledge  in  which  the 
best  that  has  been  done  is  not  embodied  in  the  literature  of 
the  subject.  This  knowledge  may  be  found  in  books  or  in 
technical  periodicals  ;  and  in  proportion  as  the  pupil  advances 
into  the  higher  realms  of  knowledge,  in  the  same  proportion 
does  the  function  of  the  teacher  become  less  and  less  that  of 


IN  A  UGURA  TION  OF  PRESIDENT  ADAMS.  63 

a  dogmatist  and  more  and  more  that  of  one  who  simply  points 
out  the  way  and  guides  the  student  in  his  own  independent 
investigations.  Every  sphere  of  knowledge  is  now  inclining 
to  the  historical  method  of  investigation.  Every  successful 
investigator  must  know  what  has  been  done  before.  Adams 
and  Leverrier  discovered  Neptune  simultaneously  and  inde- 
pendently, simply  because  certain  observations  had  revealed 
perturbations  that  could  be  most  naturally  accounted  for  by  the 
existence  of  an  unknown  planet.  There  were  so  many  invent- 
ors of  the  telephone,  because  investigations  chiefly  in  the 
laboratory  of  Professor  Helmholz  and  his  predecessors  had 
brought  knowledge  of  the  curious  and  subtle  laws  of  the 
transmission  of  sound  to  a  point  from  which  but  a  single  step 
was  necessary  to  bring  all  these  elusive  conditions  into  prac- 
tical and  daily  use.  Even  Columbus  would  have  never  pushed 
his  way  across  the  unknown  western  ocean  but  for  the  evi- 
dence he  had  collected  in  books  concerning  the  sphericity  of 
the  earth.  We  now  know  that  he  made  himself  thoroughly 
familiar  with  the  literature  of  the  subject.  He  finally  suc- 
ceeded, not  only  because  he  had  in  unusual  measure  the  cour- 
age of  his  convictions,  but  also  because  those  convictions  were 
founded  on  an  unalterable  belief  that  the  known  phenomena 
could  only  be  accounted  for  by  the  existence  of  land  in  the 
far  West,  and  that  a  westward  voyage  must  result  in  dis- 
covery. And  so  it  is  in  every  domain  of  knowledge.  If  the 
investigator  would  know  whether  he  is  finding  what  is  new,  he 
must  know  what  has  been  done  by  those  before  him.  It  may 
be  in  a  measure  true,  as  Garfield  said,  that  a  bench  with  a  boy 
at  one  end  and  Mark  Hopkins  at  the  other,  is  a  good  college. 
But  a  university  must  be  constructed  on  another  plan.  It  is 
as  true  now  as  it  was  when  Newman  wrote,  that  a  university  is 
a  place  for  the  teaching  of  universal  knowledge ;  but  the 
first  necessity  of  such  a  function  is  a  generous  store  of  books. 
In  all  ages  of  the  world  such  provisions  have  been  considered 
of  the  most  elementary  and  necessary  importance.  The  new 
University  of  Strasburg,  established,  as  I  have  already  said,  as 


64  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

one  of  the  fruits  of  the  Franco-German  war,  was  not  willing 
even  to  begin  instruction  till  it  had  collected  a  quarter  of  a 
million  volumes.  This  number  in  the  course  of  fifteen  years 
increased  to  nearly  or  quite  four  hundred  thousand. 

Up  to  the  present  time  this  university  has  been  chiefly 
dependent  upon  the  resources  of  the  Library  of  the  State 
Historical  Society.  In  some  departments  of  knowledge  this 
noble  collection  has  afforded  invaluable  aid.  But  even  for  stu- 
dents in  those  departments,  the  remoteness  of  the  collection  from 
the  University  is  a  serious  drawback.  The  use  of  a  library  for 
university  students  is  greatly  enhanced  if  it  can  be  visited  dur- 
ing the  intervals  of  one  or  two  hours  between  the  regular  exer- 
cises of  the  class-room.  The  recent  report  of  the  secretary 
shows  that  more  than  nine-tenths  of  the  use  of  the  State  His- 
torical Library  is  by  members  of  the  university.  This  use 
would  be  increased  by  many  fold  if  the  library  were  located 
near  the  center  of  university  activity.  The  present  library 
accommodation  at  the  university  are  altogether  indequatc,  and 
the  building  where  the  library  is  housed  will  not  readily  adapt 
itself  to  enlargement.  It  may  profitably  be  used  for  other 
purposes.  For  these  reasons  I  cannot  resist  the  conviction 
that  the  good  of  the  university  recjuires  either  the  moving  of 
the  Historical  Library,  or  an  immediate  jjrovision  for  a  sepa- 
rate library  building,  and  a  large  separate  library  for  the  use 
of  the  university. 

As  yet  I  have  spoken  only  of  what  may  be  called  the 
material  needs  of  the  university.  I  should  not  do  my  full  duty 
if  I  did  not  add  that  there  are  other  needs  of  no  less  pressing 
importance.  It  is  as  true  as  it  is  trite  to  say  that  the  domain 
of  knowledge  is  ever  growing  wider  and  wider.  Advancing 
civilization  is  ever  growing  more  and  more  complicated.  The 
demands  of  to-day  are  far  greater  than  were  the  demands  of 
yesterday.  The  luxuries  of  a  few  years  ago  are  the  necessities 
of  to-day.  The  boundless  resources  of  Wisconsin  may  well 
awaken  the  just  pride  of  every  citizen.  These  resources, 
developed  and  husbanded  by  an  energetic  ami  frugal  i)et)ple, 
are  rapidly  augmenting  the  wealth  of  the  stale.    Hiil  this  rajjid 


IN  A  UGURA  TION  OF  PRESIDENT  ADAMS.  65 

advancement  is  exceeded,»by  the  advancement  of  the  univer- 
sity. It  is  to  the  credit  of  our  civilization  that  as  soon  as  the 
bare  necessities  of  life  are  satisfied,  the  demands  of  our  higher 
nature  begin  to  assert  themselves.  Hence  in  communities 
with  healthful  public  opinion  the  desires  for  better  and  higher 
things  are  apt  to  multiply  even  more  rapidly  than  the  means 
of  satisfying  them.  This  has  constantly  been  the  fact  in  this 
state ;  and  for  this  reason  the  percentage  of  increase  in  the 
classes  at  the  university  has  been  much  greater  than  the  rate 
of  increase  in  population  or  even  in  wealth.  The  significance 
of  this  fact  is  that  the  university  must  constantly  come  to  the 
state  for  additional  support.  Even  to-day  our  classes  are  too 
large  to  be  well  taught  by  the  force  at  our  command ;  and  a 
real  injustice  has  in  some  cases  to  be  done.  The  teaching 
force  ought  to  be  very  considerably  increased. 

But  even  this  is  not  all.  The  wants  of  the  people  are  not 
satisfied  with  the  instruction  that  is  given  at  the  university. 
Within  the  past  few  years  the  feeling  has  grown  to  be  one  of 
the  most  notable  features  in  modern  education  that  the  uni- 
versity should  not  limit  its  instruction  to  those  who  are  able 
to  be  in  actual  attendance.  There  are  thousands,  yea,  tens  of 
thousands,  who  desire  to  avail  themselves  of  such  instruction, 
but  cannot  leave  their  homes  to  go  to  the  university.  Cannot 
the  university  be  taken  to  them?  The  modern  University 
Extension  movement  is  an  effort  to  answer  this  question.  It 
is  an  interesting  fact  that  this  question  first  received  definite 
form  in  one  of  the  conservative  seats  of  learning  in  conserva- 
tive England.  Within  a  few  years  after  this  desire  took  prac- 
tical form,  lectures  and  teachers  went  from  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge to  every  important  city  and  village  in  Great  Britain  ; 
and  several  thousand  carefully  prepared  courses  of  instruction 
are  now  annually  given.  The  movement  was  so  unmistakably 
beneficial  that  it  crossed  the  Atlantic  as  naturally  as  did  the 
jury  system  and  the  common  law.  It  has  found  congenial  soil 
wKerever  there  is  an  enterprising  desire  for  more  knowledge 
and  greater  intelligence.     The  growth   of  the  movement  has 


66  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

been  perhaps  even  more  rajjid  in  Uic  west  than  in  the  east. 
The  impulse  early  took  definite  form  in  Wisconsin.  Last  year 
more  than  a  hundred  calls  for  courses  of  extension  lectures 
came  to  the  university ;  more  than  forty  were  given.  This 
year  the  demands  thus  far  have  been  greater  than  they  were 
at  the  corresponding  date  last  year.  It  has  been  the  policy 
of  the  university  to  respond  to  these  calls  as  often  as  can  be 
done  without  great  injustice  to  the  students  and  to  the  univer- 
sity itself.  But  the  demands  are  more  than  we  can  supply. 
Even  this  year  we  have  found  ourselves  impelled  to  go  farther 
than  can  be  justified  as  a  permanent  policy.  It  will  be  uni- 
versally admitted  that  the  first  duties  of  our  teaching  force  are 
at  the  university  itself,  and  unless  the  legislature  deems  it  best 
to  make  some  adequate  provision  for  the  administration  and 
support  of  the  mouement,  the  university  will  be  obliged  to 
diminish,  if  not  to  discontinue  its  efforts  in  this  direction  alto- 
gether. The  legislature  has  shown  how  the  work  can  be  done 
by  the  provision  it  has  made  for  the  kindred  work  of  the 
farmers'  institutes,  and  any  one  who  looks  at  the  list  of  the 
institutes  held  and  knows  the  interest  that  has  been  evinced 
and  the  profit  that  has  been  realized  by  the  attendance,  will 
find  it  difificult  to  believe  that  the  same  amount  of  money 
expended  in  any  other  way  within  the  past  two  years  has 
resulted  in  any  greater  good.  Whether  similar  provision 
should  not  be  made  for  the  support  of  the  university  extension 
movement  must  be  decided  by  the  legislature,  and  not  by  the 
authorities  of  the  university. 

At  the  risk  of  making  still  further  drafts  upon  your 
patience,  I  must  add  a  word  in  regard  to  the  youngest  child 
of  the  University,  the  School  of  Economics,  Political  Science, 
and  History.  The  two  jjarents  of  the  child  were  the  Library 
and  the  Wisconsin  State  Historical  Society,  the  best  for  the 
purpose  in  the  Northwest,  and  the  fact  that  judicious,  careful 
and  wise  instruction  in  political  science  is  one  of  the  greatest 
needs  of  the  time.  If  anywhere  in  the  world  it  is  desirable 
that  political  information,  free  from  all  partisanship,  should  be 


INAUGURATION  OF  PRESIDENl  ADAMS.  67 

disseminated  among  the  people,  it  is  in  a  republic  like  ours, 
where  it  is  by  the  people,  as  well  as  for  the  people,  that  insti- 
tutions are  created  and  given  their  characteristics.  It  is 
because  the  people  have  not  considered  this  fact  in  all  its 
bearings  that  we  have  very  justly  come  to  have  the  reputation 
of  being  the  most  wasteful  nation  in  the  world  in  matters  per- 
taining to  political  and  municipal  administration.  It  has 
recently  been  shown  that  a  city  in  England  with  as  many 
charitable  and  benevolent  institutions  as  a  corresponding  city 
in  the  United  States  is  more  perfectly  governed  and  adminis- 
tered at  a  fourth  part  of  the  cost.  Everybody  whose  intelli- 
gence and  judgment  are  equal  to  his  patriotism,  when  comparing 
the  administrative  methods  of  our  American  cities  with  those 
of  European  cities  of  corresponding  importance,  is  greatly 
impressed  with  the  superior  efficiency  and  economy  of  Euro- 
pean methods.  Nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  we  have 
gone  too  far  in  adopting  the  belief  that  it  is  more  profitable  to 
devote  our  time  to  making  money  than  to  protecting  or  sav- 
ing it.  To  ignorant  or  partially  educated  men  the  two  often 
seem  incompatible;  but  the  only  obstacle  to  uniting  the  two 
is  the  fact  that  while  the  accumulation  of  a  fortune  is  the  fruit 
of  individual  effort,  the  protection  and  preservation  of  it  is 
very  largely  the  result  of  efforts  made  by  society  as  a  whole. 
It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  education  of  society  in  methods 
of  efficiency  and  economic  administration  is  of  the  highest 
importance.  And  the  education  of  society  is  best  accom- 
plished by  the  education  of  those  who,  for  better  or  for  worse, 
are  to  give  society  its  opinions. 

I  might  raise  a  similar  query  in  regard  to  the  momentous 
questions  involved  in  the  present  relations  of  capital  and  labor. 
Capital  thinks  labor  has  no  right  to  complain,  while  labor 
thinks  that  capital  gets  more  than  its  share  of  the  profits.  In 
a  government  by  public  opinion,  the  question  is  not  more. 
What  is  the  right,  than  it  is,  Can  the  people  be  made  to  see 
and  adopt  the  right?  Less  than  two  months  ago  I  received  a 
letter  from  a  business  man,  who  is  at  once  a  capitalist,  a  phil- 


68  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

anthropist,  and  a  scholar,  in  which  he  used  these  impressive 
words: 

"Capital  and  labor  stand  in  about  the  same  antagonism 
that  the  king  and  the  people  of  F"rance  stood  in  1793,  and 
consecjuences  as  great  will,  in  mv  ojjinion,  result  from  the  con- 
flict that  now  seems  upon  us.  Men  who  think  must  now  direct 
public  affairs,  or  chaos  will  come  to  the  republic." 

That  this  is  a  gloomy  view  of  the  situation  cannot  be  denied; 
but  the  fact  that  such  a  view  is  held  by  a  man  of  prominence 
and  intelligence  is  enough  to  show  that  there  is  call  for  what- 
ever we  can  do  for  a  higher  education  in  political  and  eco- 
nomic affairs.  The  School  of  Economics,  Political  Science, 
and  History  has  been  established  for  the  careful  study  of  all 
such  questions.  Its  spirit  is  that  of  investigation.  .  It  will  tol- 
erate no  partisanship;  it  will  promulgate  no  political  dogmas. 
It  will  be  its  constant  effort  to  study  whatever  is  to  be  learned 
in  the  old  world,  or  in  the  new,  of  the  best  methods  of  con- 
ducting the  affairs  of  the  general  government,  of  the  state,  and 
of  the  municipality.  It  will  have  to  deal  with  great  questions. 
Its  ambition  is  a  worthy  one,  and  it  bespeaks  the  generous 
sympathy,  and  support  of  public  and  private  beneficence. 

There  are  other  directions  in  which  the  University,  by 
means  of  new  departments  and  the  enlargement  of  depart- 
ments already  established,  can  render  additional  service  to 
the  sons  and  daughters  of  the  state.  But  I  will  further  ask 
your  indulgence  only  while  I  say  a  single  word  in  regard  to 
what  I  conceive  to  be  the  proper  attitude  of  the  President  of 
this  University  toward  the  Legislature  and  the  i)eo}jle  in  the 
matter  of  legislative  appropriations.  This  University  does  not 
belong  to  the  Regents;  still  less  docs  it  belong  to  the  Presi- 
dent and  the  Faculty.  It  belongs  to  the  people  of  Wisconsin. 
The  Regents,  and  under  them,  the  President  and  the  corps  of 
teachers,  are  administrators  of  a  trust.  In  the  administration 
of  this  trust  our  duties  are  two-fold.  It  is  our  first  business  to 
afford  the  best  instruction  in  our  j)ower  with  the  means  at  our 
disposal.      Our  second   duty  is  to   report    from  time  tt)  time  in 


INA  UGURA  TION  OF  PRESIDENT  ADAMS.  69 

regard  to  the  conditions  of  greater  efficiency  and  power.  I 
cannot  see  why  our  duty  is  not  at  an  end,  when,  after  provid- 
ing for  proper  instruction  and  administration,  we  point  out  to 
the  Legislature  the  ways  in  which,  according  to  our  judgment, 
the  University  can  be  improved  and  made  more  efficient.  I 
hope  we  shall  never  regard  it  as  our  duty  to  play  the  role  of 
importunity.  We  must  do  the  best  we  can  with  the  means 
submitted  to  our  charge. 

It  is  equally  our  duty  to  say  that,  if  it  is  to  keep  pace  with 
the  demands  of  a  rapidly  growing  state  and  advancing  civili- 
zation, not  to  say  with  neighboring  institutions,  it  must  have 
ever  large  and  increasing  supplies  of  the  means  by  which  alone 
a  university  can  do  its  duty  in  an  adequate  way.  To  the  leg- 
islators we  would  say:  You  are  fortunate  in  having  the  means 
of  supply  in  large  abundance.  Visit  the  University.  Examine 
it  in  its  minutest  details.  All  its  interests  are  yours,  as  the 
representatives  of  the  people.  Consider  its  usefulness  and  its 
possibilities.  Make  yourselves  familiar  with  it;  and  then,  I 
have  no  doubt,  you  will  decide  wisely  and  generously  what 
provisions  you  will  make  for  the  improvement  of  the  sons  and 
daughters  of  Wisconsin.  As  I  recall  the  history  of  what  has 
already  been  accomplished  ;  as  I  contemplate  the  resources  of 
this  great  and  noble  state  ;  as  I  survey  the  enormous  possi- 
bilities and  opportunities,  I  cannot  doubt  that  the  legislature 
and  the  people  will  be  content  with  nothing  short  of  making 
it  worthy  of  the  state  ;  and  this  means,  the  peer  of  any  other 
university  in  the  land. 


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